China Daily network March 14, according to ABCNews (ABCNews) recently reported that the surge in the number of illegally modified automatic machine guns in the United States has made the already difficult to cure the disease of gun violence "worse".

ABC News reported screenshot

According to reports, due to the alarming growth of 3D printing production or online purchase of small metal or plastic parts, the United States in recent years have appeared the use of modified fully automatic guns to produce shooting incidents. While the ban on machine guns dates back to the prohibition era of the 1920s and '30s, authorities say the proliferation of modified parts such as Glock switches and throwback iron has helped fuel gun violence by enabling ordinary people to modify legal semi-automatic guns to be more dangerous.

The most recent data available shows a 570 percent increase in the number of modified devices seized by US police departments between 2017 and 2021, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) report. Guns with modified devices have been used in a number of mass shootings, including a 2023 shooting at a birthday party in Alabama that left four dead and a 2022 shooting at a bar area in Salamento, California, that left six dead.

SteveDettelbach, the director of the ATF, said that US police were now dealing with fully automatic shootings at a rate not seen since the days of prohibition and the Thompson submachine gun, and that "it's an extremely serious problem". Parts and devices to modify semi-automatic weapons can be made in about 35 minutes on a 3-D printer, or can be purchased online for less than $30, the report said. The parts are also simple to assemble and do not take much time.

The modified gun starts firing when the trigger is pressed and doesn't stop until the trigger is released or the bullets run out. According to a demonstration by ATF staff, semi-automatic weapons equipped with modified devices are virtually indistinguishable from automatic weapons in terms of shooting. The ATF says the modified devices of different designs can be adapted to a range of different guns, allowing them to fire at a rate of 800 rounds per minute or more.

"It only takes two or three seconds to attach these devices to the gun, and that's all it takes to turn a [regular] gun into a machine gun in an instant," Dettelbach said.

Between 2012 and 2016, 814 gun modification devices were found by U.S. police and turned over to the ATF. And that number skyrocketed to more than 5,400 between 2017 and 2021, according to the ATF's most recent data.

Minneapolis Police Chief BrianO 'Hara (BrianO' Hara said such modified guns began to take hold in Minneapolis in 2021 and helped fuel the city's record-breaking gun violence that year. Modified guns are more dangerous because, in addition to firing bullets at high speeds, the switch makes it more difficult for a shooter to control the gun, potentially accidentally hitting more people.

"The gun vibrates when it's fired, so you have multiple victims in the same shooting incident who are shot in the limbs, and that's because the shooter has no control over the weapon," O 'Hara explained. He added: "This is a very, very real problem that has profound consequences for families, for communities, and for society as a whole." While federal law in the United States makes such guns illegal, many states do not have specific laws against them, the

reports. According to the GiffordsLawCenter to Prevent Gun Violence, only 15 US states have state laws banning the possession, sale or manufacture of automatic firing weapons, and five have no state-level regulations involving machine guns at all.

Isaac Davis' 11-year-old son was a victim of an illegally modified machine gun. He said "it's a scary trend" that these guns and modified devices are increasingly appearing online, in social media and even in song lyrics.

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