ABA Passes NYSBA Resolution Asking Congress To Ban Firearm Conversion Devices
8.4.2026
The American Bar Association passed a resolution Monday from the New York State Bar Association urging federal, state and local governments to ban conversion devices on firearms. Such devices make a semiautomatic weapon operate like a rapid-fire machine gun.
The delegation is led by New York State Bar Association President Taa Grays who gave a stirring speech to the ABA House of Delegates highlighting the grim toll these weapons have.
“On Sept. 1, 2025, in the Bronx, four young people targeted and fatally shot a 25-year-old man. Four other men were injured in the crossfire,” she said. “Five guns were recovered, including a .45-caliber pistol equipped with a Glock switch that made it fully automatic. This is one of the many real-life tragic examples of the need to ban conversion devices.”
The Glock switch is one of a variety of small devices that can attach to a semiautomatic pistol and allow the weapon to fire continuously with a single pull of the trigger. A forced reset trigger drives the trigger forward after each discharge. A shooter who maintains pressure on the trigger can fire successive rounds like they would with a machine gun.
Margaret Finerty, the co-chair of the NYSBA Task Force on Mass Shootings and Assault Weapons and the chair of the Policy Subcommittee of the ABA Standing Committee on Gun Violence, said it’s much too easy to convert these weapons.
“The devices are inexpensive to manufacture, easy to conceal, have increasingly been imported illegally from overseas manufacturers and can be produced using consumer-grade 3-D printers,” she said.
The NYSBA task force published a report in 2020 with 15 recommendations for gun control including the banning of bump stocks and conversion devices.
Changes in Federal Firearms Law Enforcement
Congress first addressed the problem of convertible firearms in the Gun Control Act of 1968, which updated a 1930s law that defined a “machine gun” as not only capable of automatic fire, but also one with parts that can convert it to fire rapidly. Once the law was passed, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives moved to stop the manufacture and distribution of conversion devices such as the forced reset trigger.
Manufacturers and gun-rights organizations challenged the law and there were conflicting rulings. While appeals were pending, the Department of Justice abandoned its prior position that forced reset triggers were being used to create illegal machine guns. In May 2025, the government announced a settlement, agreeing to dismiss pending cases and to stop considering guns with conversion devices illegal. Since then, Finerty reports that several states have regulated conversion devices.
“Consistent with the historic purpose of federal machine gun regulation, Congress should update the federal definition of a machine gun to address modern rate of fire enhancement devices,” she said.
Grays called the ABA to action, saying there is no compelling reason for anyone other than the military to possess machine guns.
“I ask that we adopt this resolution so we can fill the gap in firearms control left by the federal government. Together, we can help prevent the tragic loss of life from shootings that occur when conversion devices are used to turn semi-automatic weapons into machine guns,” Grays said.
