CHICAGO — As Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke announced on Thursday that her office will seek prison time for every defendant accused of possessing or using a machine gun.
While machine guns may seem like relics from the gangster era, a new breed of automatic weapons is rapidly gaining popularity on Chicago’s streets. Using a small aftermarket “switch” device that can be purchased for as little as $25, anyone can convert certain models of handguns, usually Glocks, to spray dozens of bullets with a single pull of the trigger.
“The bottom line is if you are convicted of using one of these weapons of war on the streets of Cook County, you are going to prison,” Burke said.
O’Neill Burke’s office said the policy shift is based on “a fifteenfold increase in the number of illegally modified firearms being recovered by local law enforcement.”
Converted pistols generate significant recoil and are very difficult to control, especially for inexperienced shooters who may be firing them on the streets. Here’s a YouTube video that shows the firing of two converted pistols equipped with drum magazines:
Under the new policy, front-line prosecutors are no longer allowed to enter plea agreements for reduced charges “when the evidence is sufficient to prove” possession of a machine gun or a “machine gun-like device,” O’Neill Burke’s statement said. A supervisor must approve any reduction in charge.
“Anyone who has seen one of these modified guns in action—which enable a shooter to unload a 30-round drum magazine in less than two seconds—understands that these are weapons of war that have no place in our communities,” O’Neill Burke said in a press release. “With this policy shift, we are providing certainty and consistency for prosecutors and police so they can do their work with confidence to get these incredibly dangerous weapons and the people who use them off the street.”
Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling and Christopher Amon, the special agent in charge of the ATF’s Chicago office, supported O’Neill Burke’s policy shift.
When O’Neill Burke took office on December 1, she immediately announced a host of policy changes, including charging all retail thefts of more than $300 as felonies. State law sets that limit, but her predecessor, Kim Foxx, decided to put the felony bar at $1,000. CWBChciago found that felony retail theft charges increased 154% in December.
She also ordered prosecutors to automatically seek detention for anyone accused of murder, carjacking, armed robbery, home invasion, aggravated battery of a child, domestics involving a weapon, and any detainable felon offense where a defendant is accused of using or possessing a ghost gun, extended magazine, or machine gun.
In another policy change, O’Neill Burke’s office is allowing Chicago cops in one of the city’s 22 police districts to file felony gun charges without getting approval from a prosecutor.
