A $25 Device Is Costing Illinoisans Their Lives and Tens of Millions of Dollars; Lawmakers Can’t Afford to Ignore DIY Machine Guns

Illinois is paying a steep and growing price for the spread of illegal machine gun conversion devices commonly known as “switches.” In a matter of seconds, these small, inexpensive devices can turn a pistol into a fully automatic weapon capable of firing at a rate of up to 1,200 rounds per minute. 

In addition to the human toll, these $25 devices are driving a massive financial toll for victims, communities, and taxpayers.

The price tag of just two shootings shows the scale of the problem:

• A 2022 Chicago mass shooting involving a switch that killed two people and wounded seven others cost an estimated $38 million, including more than $1.3 million in direct taxpayer costs.
• A 2023 shooting that wounded eight people cost an estimated $6.7 million, including $376,000 in taxpayer costs.

That’s more than $44 million from just two incidents involving switches. These are not isolated incidents — they are examples of a much larger, largely hidden economic burden.

Illinois already pays the price for gun violence:

• One single homicide in Illinois costs $16.4 million on average, including roughly $800,000 in taxpayer costs.
• A nonfatal shooting in Illinois costs $845,000 on average, including over $44,000 to taxpayers.

Switches compound that harm. They allow shooters to fire dozens of rounds in seconds, turning shootings into mass-casualty events, multiplying medical costs, emergency responses, long-term care, and economic losses.

And the problem is rapidly growing:

• More than 1,300 Glock modified into machine guns were recovered by Chicago police between 2021 and May 2024.
• Chicago has seen a 15-fold increase in switch recoveries between 2019 and 2024, with nearly half tied to shootings. Hundreds of people in Cook County alone have been charged with possessing or selling switches.
• Nationally, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) reported in 2024 that more than 31,000 machine gun conversion devices had been recovered in the past five years.

These figures likely undercount the true scope of the problem. Many shootings go unsolved, and law enforcement does not always recover or confirm the use of a switch — meaning the financial burden is almost certainly far higher than current estimates show.

The bottom line: Illinois cannot afford the status quo.

Instead of fixing this problem, a handful of gun makers continue to produce and sell easily convertible pistols that can be turned into automatic weapons with nothing more than a screwdriver and a $25 device.

Illinois is already paying millions because of it.

Failing to act is not just a public safety failure — it is also a fiscal one.

HB 4471/SB 2801 would directly address the source of the problem by preventing the sale of pistols that can be easily converted into machine guns, forcing industry change and reducing the flow of these weapons into communities.

At a time when lawmakers are weighing costs, the choice is clear:

Illinois can either act to prevent this violence — or continue paying far more for the devastation it causes.