'Switches' are turning handguns into machine guns on GTA streets

Toronto police have seized more devices that illegally transform semi-automatic handguns into fully automatic machine guns this year than ever before, according to new data shared with CBC News. 

A Toronto Police Service spokesperson said the agency has seized 109 firearm auto switches — also known as auto sears — so far this year, compared to 29 in all of 2023 and 32 in 2022. 

The small metal or plastic device, roughly the size of a quarter, allows a firearm to shoot "900 to 1,200 rounds a minute," said Toronto police senior firearm officer Matthew Passmore.

Auto switches are prohibited in Canada, yet have been confiscated in a number of recent high profile investigations across the country. 

This includes the Toronto shootout on Nov. 11, where investigators said nearly 100 shots were fired outside a Queen Street W. recording studio and 23 people were arrested. Sixteen guns were confiscated, police said, including four handguns equipped with auto switches.

In October, Peel Regional Police announced they seized 53 auto switches as part of an investigation targeting alleged drug traffickers in the GTA. 

And in spring 2023, Winnipeg police said they found nearly 100 auto switches, as well as 20 3D-printed gun parts, during a house search in the city. Police were tipped off by the Canada Border Services Agency months earlier, when they discovered parts used for 3D-printed guns were being shipped to Winnipeg from the U.S. and China. 

WATCH | Illegal modifiers on Canadian streets turn handguns into machine guns:

Illegal modifiers turn handguns into machine guns — and they’re on Canadian streets

10 days ago

Duration 1:53

After a recent shootout in Toronto, police seized multiple handguns outfitted with a ‘Glock switch’ modification that turns the weapon into a machine gun. The conversion devices are easy to find and, police say, making the gun problem even worse.

The only purpose of an auto switch is to maximize harm, according to Michael Arntfield, a criminologist at Western University.

"To have the droves of these weapons that really just are designed to militarize street crime — this is extremely concerning," he said.

Jillian Snider, a retired NYPD officer and a lecturer at New-York based John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said the U.S. is also seeing a significant increase in the use of auto switches. The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) has seized more than 31,000 of these machine gun conversion devices in the past five years. 

What's more, said Snider, is that people using these devices are generally not trained in firearms.

"You are converting a weapon to make it do something that it was not intended to do, and then on top of it, you lack any type of familiarity or training with the weapon, you're not holding it correctly. It's very dangerous," said Snider. 

"The person firing this weapon has no control, nor do they understand that one to two seconds with their finger on that trigger can release between 30 and 60 rounds potentially."

Gun violence is on the rise across Canada, according to the latest Statistics Canada data, which notes the number of shootings across Canada more than doubled between 2018 and 2023, rising from 1,151 to 2,323. 

There have been 417 shootings in Toronto alone so far this year, according to the Toronto Police Public Safety Data Portal, a significant increase from the 296 last year. 

Restricted guns that end up on Canadian streets are often smuggled from the U.S. In the case of the recent Nov. 11 Toronto shooting, all of the firearms seized originated from the U.S., said Toronto police Staff Supt. Joe Matthews.

"This highlights the ongoing challenge of cross-border gun trafficking and the urgent need for enhanced measures to prevent illegal firearms from entering our communities," he said at a news conference last week. 

While prohibited, auto switches in particular do not appear difficult to obtain from within Canada. CBC News has viewed one website that sells the devices for less than $200 Cdn, with the company stating it ships to Canada. There are also online videos that show how to install an auto switch on firearms in less than one minute. 

"There is no easy solution to this," said Arntfield. "There's an increasingly evolving and unpredictable criminal landscape in Canada now for which there's no real precedent."