By Nick Patterson | npatterson@al.com
In 2025, AL.com’s “Beyond the Violence” project, in partnership with The Birmingham Times, examines how Birmingham can become safer, healthier and happier.
Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin this week warned users of Glock switches and machine gun conversion devices that a new state law triggers new rewards offered for their arrest.
Woodfin said the Crime Stoppers program would facilitate $1,000 rewards for the arrest of people caught in posession of gun conversion devices. Gov. Kay Ivey signed a law that makes possession a Class C felony March 19.
The Senate approved the bill on Tuesday with an amendment brought forth in the House that put the proposed law into effect as soon as Ivey signed it.
As he has often done in the past, Woodfin turned to social media, as well as the city public information department, to relay the message.
“Dear switch boys,” he began. “Governor Ivey signed a law today that makes possessing a Glock switch illegal. Simple possession satisfies law and you can receive up to 10 years in prison.
“Law enforcement up one and BPD is outside ready to put case on all of y’all.
“We are also partnering with Crime Stoppers for community members to call in and remain anonymous. If your call leads to a credible arrest for someone who possesses a Glock switch, you will receive $1,000.”
Woodfin encouraged calling Crime Stoppers at 205-254-7777, and in a part of the message aimed at the general citizen, wrote, “Help us get these switch boys off our streets.”
He finished with another warning to “switch boys”: “Y’all were hell in 2024. We putting serious heat on yall in 2025.”
Machine gun conversion devices, that render a regular handgun capable of firing rapidly like an automatic weapon, have been frequently cited as contributing factors to Birmingham’s record-breaking year of homicides, in which 152 people were killed.
The Woodfin administration and city police department have recently ramped up efforts aimed at stopping the violence.
Interim Police Chief Michael Pickett told AL.com in an earlier interview that machine gun conversion devices were increasingly a target for crime prevention efforts — but only part of the effort.
“A part of the gun violence strategy is having a crackdown on the gun trafficking in and of itself, for guns, and also the machine gun conversion devices as well as focusing on straw purchases, young men, young women or older men, older women that want to purchase a weapon, knowing that they’re simply going to hand it off to someone else,” he said.
Pickett said that having a state law against possessing a machine gun conversion device would give local police another tool.
Responding to questions about why a state law against Glock switches is needed when they’re already in violation of federal law, Woodfin said, “There’s a state law for robbery. There’s a state law for assault. There’s state law for everything else. That’s a federal law. So why wouldn’t you do it for, I would say for Birmingham?
“The most heinous crimes that were committed were with the use of Glock switches. There’s no other intent to have this but to spray a lot of bullets that hurt, that cause mass casualties.”
