ATF and St. Louis Police warned St. Louisans this week that regular semiautomatic guns are being turned into fully automatic weapons with an after-market device, often made on 3D printers.
The device is called a switch, and St. Louis Police Interim Chief Mike Sack says police are finding more and more of them.
"The ballistic evidence that we've recovered and the county's lab as well shows that these weapons are crossing boundaries," Sack sad. "We've had cartridge cases located in the city of St. Louis, in the County, and various municipalities around the county, they're coming back to the same guns and bounced back and forth."
Sack says police only seized four in 2021, but last year investigators seized 27. Already this year, they've seen three.
Sack said that in 2021, St. Louis County Police had 32 separate incidents of fully automatic gunfire tracked by Shot Spotter technology -- last year the number jumped to 123.
Sack added that Shot Spotter can't determine the caliber of weapon being fired, only tracks the gunfire.
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