Wednesday, October 22, 2025

The (Glock) Plot Thickens...

Back in the '80s, the BATF (it hadn't had the 'E' added yet) reclassified semiautomatic firearms firing from the open bolt as machine guns due to their ease of conversion to full auto. If you ever had some know-it-all in high school tell you that all you had to do to make a semiauto into a buzz gun was to "file the sear back", this is the origin of that urban legend.

I've stated before that if the technology to easily 3D print slide cover plate selector switches had existed when Glocks were first imported into the US, the ATF might have ruled them machine guns and changed the trajectory of handgun sales and technology in the US over the last forty years substantially. As it was, by the time things like 3D printing and Alibaba shipping became a thing, the Glock horse was well out of the barn and it was the most common semiautomatic handgun on the market. Trying to call it a machine gun would have been King Canute levels of futile.

The increasing prevalence of switches is causing legislative splashback on the state level though, and it looks like Glock is reacting.