A federal judge in Rockford is calling for stiffer penalties for people who possess devices called switches that convert handguns into machine guns.
Judge Iain Johnston has told the U.S. Sentencing Commission he’s “alarmed” by its current guidelines that result in only two additional months of incarceration for possession of a gun with a switch — when compared with the sentence for possession of a regular firearm.
Johnston — who with former Illinois State Police Col. Mike Snyders sent a letter to the commission Monday — wrote that the combination of a handgun with a switch and an extended magazine or drum is “beyond terrifying” and is unleashing devastation nationwide, including in the Chicago region.
Just last year, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers stationed in Chicago seized 473 shipments containing a total of 1,507 switches, the letter said. And it noted that from 2019 and 2023, the number of switches that law enforcement recovered in crimes and subsequently traced by the federal agents increased more than 784%.
Switch-related cases in the state courts in the Rockford area have soared in the past three years — and the number of juvenile cases doubled from 2022 to 2024, Johnston’s letter said.
“And calendar year 2025 is already on a record-setting pace, looking like it will far surpass previous years,” it said.
Federal sentencing guidelines are notoriously complex, but Johnston’s and Snyders’ proposal, in general, would raise prison terms for people caught with switches.
And people with switches affixed to their guns would face even stiffer prison terms than those who only possess unattached devices.
Under Johnston’s proposal, for instance, someone with three felony convictions who is charged with possession of a gun with an attached switch would have an advisory range of about 121 to 151 months in prison — at least 10 years.
Under the current guidelines manual that judges use, the range would be 92 to 115 months — less than 10 years.
The sentencing commission’s deadline to accept written comments from the public about proposed changes to guidelines for switches was Monday. Next, the commission will hold a hearing later this year on whether to amend its current guidelines.
Johnston’s proposal isn’t unique: Other jurisdictions, including Cook County, are vowing to get tougher on possession of switches.
On Jan. 30, new Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke, citing a “fifteen-fold increase” in the number of illegally modified guns recovered by police, said her office would “seek a sentence of imprisonment when the evidence is sufficient to prove that the offender was in possession of or used a machine-gun, machine-gun conversion device (MCD), extended magazine, drum magazine, automatic switch, privately made firearm, ghost gun, or defaced firearm while committing any felony offense, regardless of the class of the felony.”