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Special Agent James O’Flaherty, firearms instructor coordinator ATF field agents, shows a Glock switch Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2022 in Houston. A few of the devices, which can make a handgun fire like a machine gun, have been found in Connecticut.

Glock switches are shown installed on a pair of handguns Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2022 in Houston.

ATF Special Agent in Charge Fred Milanowski points out a Glock switch on a handgun in his office Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2022 in Houston.

Special Agent James O’Flaherty, firearms instructor coordinator ATF field agents, demonstrates the use of a handgun fit with a Glock switch Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2022 in Houston.

A tiny device capable of transforming a handgun into a mini machine gun is showing up in Connecticut, according to police reports.

The device, known colloquially as Glock “switches” or “chips,” can be quickly attached to a handgun, converting the weapon from shooting just one bullet each time the trigger is squeezed to having the capability of firing until the trigger is lifted.

A handful of the devices have been recovered by police in Connecticut in recent years, according to police reports, though it’s unclear how many of the devices are present in the state. Advocates say they pose a danger to the public because they increase the risk of bystanders being shot, and because of the apparent ease criminals are able to obtain them.

“It’s a combination of bad things,” said Mike Lawlor, a former state lawmaker who authored the state’s “red flag” law that allows police to seize someone’s guns if they pose a risk to themselves or others. “These things are really easy to get and they’re very cheap.”

The penny-sized device is technically called an auto-sear. Legally, the device by itself is considered a machine gun under federal law. Fully automatic firearms are tightly regulated under the law and don’t typically show up in violent crimes, but the cheap cost of the devices have made it easier for criminals around the country to turn a handgun into a machine pistol. Now those weapons are showing up in deadly incidents nationwide — including an ambush-style shootout with police in Houston last year that left one officer dead and another wounded.

Lawlor, who also serves on the New Haven Board of Police Commissioners, said the city’s police department has found about a dozen auto-sears this year. The devices are completely illegal to buy or possess, he pointed out, but can be found on the internet for around $20 to $25.

“It’s a very difficult situation and sooner or later there’s going to be a tragedy here, there’s been tragedies elsewhere with these things.” Lawlor added.

Last September, a suspect wanted on narcotics charges opened fire on police in Texas, killing Houston Police Officer William “Bill” Jeffrey in a hail of bullets, and wounding a second officer. The suspect was also shot and killed, according to officials. Audio from police body cam footage from the shootout captures a burst of automatic fire as police attempted to persuade the suspect, Deon Ledet, to surrender.

Authorities later confirmed the gun Ledet used in the shooting had been modified with an “auto switch.”

Another shooting in January left three officers in Houston wounded.

To the untrained eye, an auto-sear doesn’t look like much, making policing them that much harder.

“I think it's the case that ... the majority of law enforcement officers probably wouldn't even recognize these things if they encountered one,” Lawlor said. “It’s just a bunch of little pieces.”

Other firearms can be modified to fire on fully automatic, Lawlor noted. But Glocks are a popular brand of handgun in the U.S., and many are carried by law enforcement.

Federal law enforcement investigations have in some cases identified auto-sears that have been shipped to the U.S. from manufacturers in China. In other cases, the devices have been made at home using a 3D printer.

Lawlor suggested the first step might be a public education campaign to help law enforcement and the public identify the devices. When police do recognize what they are and make an arrest, Lawlor said, the federal government usually becomes involved the case.

For decades, the rarity and high cost of machine guns made them unlikely to show up in violent crimes.

In 1934, the same year authorities gunned down Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow in Louisiana, Congress enacted the National Firearms Act, a law requiring machine guns and other types firearms to be registered with the federal government. The act also followed the bloody St. Valentine’s Day Massacre of 1929, which saw seven gangsters mowed down by a rival group in Chicago. The assassins were wielding machine guns. The 1986 Firearms Owners' Protection Act tightened access to machine guns even further, banning civilian ownership or sale of weapons not already in possession.

Now, auto-sears mean fully automatic weapons are once again showing up on the street.

“I’ve heard law enforcement officers in other parts of the country refer to this as ... ‘the scariest thing that has hit the streets in a long time,’” said Jeremy Stein, executive director of Connecticut Against Gun Violence, a group that supports stronger gun laws.

Stein said the device works by essentially “bypassing” the firearms trigger mechanism, similar to a bump-stock, a device designed to make a semi-automatic weapon mimic a fully automatic rate of fire.

“There's no legitimate civilian purpose — there is no good reason to have one of these things,” he added.

“Another problem is that by and large, the people who are firing these things off have no idea what they're doing, and they're really difficult to aim,” Lawlor said. “So if you get amateurs shooting off these things, the bullets are gonna go all over the place.”

Waterbury police have found two of the devices this year.

In August, state and local police said they found a .40 caliber Glock handgun modified with a switch among a cache of other illegal guns and drugs. A Waterbury man was charged with three counts under the state’s assault weapons ban, among other offenses — two other guns, both military-style rifles, were found during the search, according to police.

In February, Waterbury police also arrested a local man they said was found in possession of a .40 caliber Glock handgun that had been stolen from Georgia.

“This particular firearm has a ‘switch’ mechanism installed that allows the user to switch between semiautomatic fire to a fully automatic fire weapon,” Waterbury police said in a news release at the time.

Waterbury police said the modification made the gun an “assault-style weapon” under state law, and charged the defendant in that case under the statute.

Because the devices are classified as a machine gun under federal law, people caught with one may also face a federal charge.

In Massachusetts, federal law enforcement arrested a man they said had 38 “switch-type” Glock conversion devices in early August, among a larger cache of weapons.

Earlier this year, a federal judge sentenced a New Haven man to 120 days in prison and three years of supervised release for selling two “Glock conversion devices” to a person who messaged him on social media, court filings show.

The man, Angel Reyes-Rodriguez, pleaded guilty to unlawful possession and transfer of machine guns in U.S. court in 2021, the U.S. attorney’s office said.

On May 3, 2019, Reyes-Rodriguez was contacted by a person about a Glock firearm he had posted a photo of online. During the conversation, Reyes-Rodriguez said he had a friend with a “chip” that could make the gun shoot automatically, court filings show. The messenger who contacted Reyes-Rodriguez was cooperating with law enforcement. Investigators recorded Reyes-Rodriguez selling two “conversion devices” to the witness for $500, records show.

A narrative of those events contained in Reyes-Rodriguez’ sentencing memo, which he does not dispute, states the witness then handed the devices over to law enforcement. The devices were labeled “made in Austria” and bore the Glock logo.

“In actuality, Glock does not, and did not, manufacture these conversion machine gun devices,” the court filing stated.

Federal prosecutors had asked the courts to impose a much longer sentence than Reyes-Rodriguez received, arguing each of the devices “can transform a Glock firearm into an automatic weapon capable of inflicting tremendous bodily injury.”

“In the wrong hands, such machine gun conversion devices enable a bad actor to cause grievous damage to a community in minutes,” the government wrote in its sentencing memo.

Peter Yankowski is a breaking news reporter for Hearst Connecticut Media. He previously reported for the Danbury News-Times and, before that, the Ridgefield Press.