Harrowing bodycam footage released this week by the Houston Police Department depicts a suspect shooting at officers with what local media are calling a “mini machine gun.”
Officer William “Bill” Jeffrey and Sgt. Michael Vance were serving an arrest warrant to Deon Ledet last month when Ledet suddenly opened fire from inside his home in northeast Houston.
Both officers were hit. Officer Jeffrey would later succumb to his wounds. Sgt. Vance is still in recovery.
Ledet, who was fatally shot during the exchange, had an illegal auto switch on his pistol that greatly increased its rate of fire.
According to Fred Milanowski, the special agent in charge of Houston’s ATF division, Ledet was able to empty a 30-round magazine in 2.6 seconds.
Milanowski told KHOU11 that the use of auto switches amongst the criminal element has increased in recent months.
“ATF has had seven investigations in Houston arresting people, all of them selling auto switches. We seized about 104 of these auto switches and seized 11 guns that had auto switches already attached to them,” Milanowski said.
The auto switch devices allow for shooting 30 round magazine in 2.6 seconds.
— Marcelino Benito (@MarcelinoKHOU) October 12, 2021
They are illegal. It turns handgun into a machine gun.
Police say it’s a threat to them and a threat to the public. #khou11 pic.twitter.com/Lekds0Q1XV
Machine guns are tightly regulated under the National Firearms Act. Generally speaking, federal law prohibits the possession of machine guns made after 1986. Included under the ATF’s definition of “machine gun” is “any part designed and intended solely and exclusively… for use in converting a weapon into a machine gun.”
Auto switches are, by definition, machine guns. Violators face up to 10 years in prison for possession of an auto switch.
SEE ALSO: ATF Seize Huge Larry Vickers Gun Collection
Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said his department has also encountered auto switches in the streets, including finding one on a convicted felon back in March who was pulled over for reckless driving.
“This is scary and dangerous stuff and these are showing up in the hands of very bad people so we need to continue to take a strong stand, whatever it takes, to protect our law enforcement officers and our community and we will do just that,” he said.
From a regulatory standpoint, there’s not much else that can be done about auto switches. They’re already prohibited. Which goes to show the limitations of gun control. Outlaws don’t care if the weapon they possess is outlawed, they’re still going to use it.
Perhaps, the best way to tackle this problem is for Houston-area prosecutors to start throwing the book at any violent offender or felon caught with an auto switch. Putting bad guys behind bars for a decade not only improves public safety but it sends a strong message to other criminals that maybe it’s time to rethink their profession.
AUTOMATIC GUN you say ???
You mean like the ones OBOZO and BIDUMB sold to the Mexican Cartels during ” FAST AND FURIOUS ” ???
And now they’re shooting them at the Border Patrol…
Chicken do come home to ROOST !!!
Not to worry…
Harris will bail LEDET out and get him unsupervised probation… like the Capitol hill Cop…
Bob, that’s the kind of racist attitude we need to curb. A typical redneck person is far better at feeding their family than most folks. Us redneck folks have an ability to live off the land in ways Bob’s of the world would never attempt. The redneck man typically has a job so he doesn’t have time to commit crimes and have warrants. Thugs on the other hand don’t know or do any of those things cause they require work! Just because you come from a family of law enforcement it in no way makes you better than anybody else. Your family chose a difficult profession, but that doesn’t make them anymore special than any other person of a “heroic” or difficult profession.
Tom says – “Another example why guns of this type need to be banned – THERE IS NO LEGITIMATE OR INTELLIGENT REASON WHY THEY SHOULD BE IN THE PUBLIC’S HANDS!”
Speaking of brain dead idiots, Tom, they’re already banned except for very specific NFA licensed individuals. Criminals can’t legally own them or any kind of gun, you fool. Another gun control success story.
This is a reply to Tom…Your ignorant rant about “Red necks ” shows what a clueless asshole you are. All anti gun blahblah . Automatic weapons are already banned without an ATF background check which has a $200.00
dollar fee and a year to wait for it to go thru the class111 background check and licensing paperwork..collectors mostly do this but regular law abiding citizens also do it. The checks are very thorough and your record must be spotless. Your brain dead comment just describes yourself and your obvious extremely angry behavior and belligerent name calling which would disqualify you from owning a gun anyways. You obviously want to live under a socialst/marxist society so you should have a vacation at one of these types of countries that are ran by dictators where the citizens have no rights and are disarmed. you are an uninformed 8 year old who quite obviously don’t know what you’re talking about like all libtards when it comes to firearms. You people need to crawl out of your half inch box you live in where you are incapable of seeing anything outside of it or having any critical thought on any subject like firearms and our rights to own them. And last, AR15’s are NOT assault rifles!! Assault rifles are selective fire which means it can shoot single shot three round bursts and full auto. An AR is semiauto(civilian model) and it takes a pull of the trigger every time you fire a round a Mini14 can do the same thing as the AR and other civilian rifles can do the same thing they just don’t look like those scary rifles that make Lib s piss themselves when they see one. In closing, grow up Tom your immaturity is jumping out of the page like every “woke” neo Nazi in America.
Don’t forget the cost of class three. They are beyond all but the richest people, the 1%erof our society!
I’m a nurse I make with overtime $140k a year and im 26 years old. I have an NFA collection worth over $130k, I have L3 Harris PVS-15’s, PEQ-15’s, Crye precision gear, LBT gear. I own a 2021 Ford Raptor paid for in cash. I’m trading it in for the 2022 Ford Raptor R when it comes out. I’m nowhere near the 1%, the 1% are billionares. I lived at home till I was 25 but still. Nice things are easily attainable.
The comments on this are pure fudd retardation.
“This why we need to ban these!”
They are highly regulated items and extremely difficult to obtain illegally. The man getting served felony warrants has an illegal firearm, not a law abiding citizen.
Best example of how gun control does not work.
The 2A doesn’t dictate what type of firearm I can own.
“Houston-area prosecutors” should include FEDERAL prosecutors. How many times have ineligible people TRIED to purchase firearms, but got tripped up by background checks? There should be an equal number of federal prosecutions. “Auto-triggers” found? Federal prosecution. The feds make very limited attempts to enforce the gun control laws already on the books. State, city and county prosecutors are doing their part, but liberal judges who are more concerned about making sure violent criminals are bonded out are making the whole thing worse. We need to fire them next election.
Another example why guns of this type need to be banned – THERE IS NO LEGITIMATE OR INTELLIGENT REASON WHY THEY SHOULD BE IN THE PUBLIC’S HANDS!
Any comments made to support widespread ownership are from brain-dead idiots…or wanna-be adults acting like 8 year olds playing cops and robbers or military fighters. LOL, no Civilian needs auto-weapons or large capacity mags. Get a life you pathetic losers who feel guns are the end-all and be-all
You really should get out of your mom’s basement more often.
The perp was using the exact same gun (Glock) that the cops were using, and that millions of other law abiding Citizens use every day for personal protection. The perp had an ILLEGAL black market switch that made it full auto. So your whole emotionally based rant makes you sound like a complete idiot. Machineguns are already banned, and those that are in civilian circulation are never used to commit crimes… ever.
If your argument is that no law abiding citizen ‘needs’ a semi-auto pistol in a country that’s already awash with them, and where criminals use them to victimize good people on a daily basis, then you’re a either a completely brain dead douche, or a troll. Either way, you just earned your idiot badge.
You do realize that this is a part which is already illegal to own in the United States. Full-automatic weapons are damn near impossible to get in the United States, for the average person. They cost tens of thousands of dollars and you can only get one that was produced prior to 1986. I don’t know whom filled your head with all of these bullshit ideas, but you should actually know something about what you are talking about before you speak on it. A so called “high capacity” magazine is nothing more than a trigger word made up by anti-gun liberal idiots. I and many other average shooters can drop and reload a 10 round into a firearm in less than a few seconds. The difference between firing 3 – 10 round magazines or 1 – 30 round magazine is almost a non issue. Therefore limiting magazines to 10 rounds would make no difference. All of this is a non argument anyhow, since criminals don’t care about the law and will aquire whatever weapons they want to own from the black market. I’m pretty sure that heroin, cocaine and meth are all illegal, yet they are smuggled into this country and bought by criminals everyday.
Tom your a MORON . Fully automatic weapons are extremely hard to get without jumping thru hopes and long wait times and finger printing and being on a atf list somewhere . only class 3 federal firearms dealers sell fully automatic firearms . they also usually cost around 15 to 20 thousand dollars. Why dont you take your Fraidy cat ass and move to canada.. pathetic losers really tom . Ha Fuck You if it wasnt for guns you would be british right now you peasent.
Funny, everyone saying that he “used” a gun with “the switch” but in all the videos that I’ve seen, you NEVER actually hear anything resembling “full-auto” fire. Yes, rapid fire, but NEVER a full-auto bursts. Seems it’s more like the Vegas shooting where the guy “had” bumpstocks on “some” of the weapons in his room but if you listen to the audio the rate of fire was obviously TRUE full-auto fire (from 2 obviously DIFFERENT caliber weapons). I’ve shot bumpstocks and it’s rate of fire is NEVER consistent enough to be mistaken for true full-auto fire for anyone who has ever actually fired a full-auto weapon. I’m incredibly sorry for the loss of life of one of our hero’s. I just feel the media is yet again miss-representing what ACTUALLY happened.
and that would be because they have an agenda… This POS had outstanding warrants, so he probably was already a convicted felon. Being in possession of a gun with an illegal full auto switch is not that big a deal to trash like that. Police need to protect themselves with ballistic shields and swat when serving these high risk warrants. They need to change the parameters on when that is appropriate, and if it includes racial and or criminal history profiling, then so be it… Let the incident commander on scene make that call, not the politicians with gold bars and braid on their shoulders. They deserve to go home to their families after their shift ends. Who cares how it looks on TV?
the give away to the whole thing was the guy’s name,deon,and the city,Houston,enough said!
I for one blame defund the police and all the other anti-rhetoric that is caused the death of these officers had this been a two years ago this high risk warrant would’ve been served properly with how much safer approach with a proper show of force using shields and other types of weapons to prevent officers being killed and even scum bag in there from being killed . Time in space is the enemy and can be your friend if you use it right he’s officers were too nice to this scumbag and he used every bit of a minute to prepare and to come up with a plan to assassinate anybody that walked in the door way and shotgun semi automatic rifle or whatever else didn’t matter fully automatic didn’t probably do any more damage than any of the other things because the scum bag probably didn’t know how to use it properly. Time in space is the enemy and can be your friend if you use it right he’s officers were too nice to this scumbag and he used every bit of a minute to prepare and come up with a plan to assassinate anybody that walked in the door way is shotgun semi automatic rifle or whatever else didn’t matter fully automatic didn’t probably do any more damage than any of the other things because the scumbag probably didn’t know how to use it properly. F/a handguns are arduous to say the least and at best you might get the first three rounds accurately after that they are probably all in the ceiling I personally would rather have the scum bag one of those and I a f/a sub gun or semi auto AR. Way more effective. Meeting a combating with a fully auto can be very unnerving and I’ve close can be very deadly , That is why proper training is so invaluable and all the officers need to unite and go after all those involved that put The innocent officers in this unsafe situation . Start blaming those that should be blamed that is our oppressors or governors however you want to call it
We have over 232 million legally population and more that millions of illegal aliens, and we have one moron shooting a clipped f/a glock at police. I’ll actually turn attention to this when we’ve got 100,000 or million people decide to start shooting fully automatic weapons at the public or police . Because although all the gun grabbers want to try and say this is happening all over the world this is such an anomaly it’s not even mentioning
I come from a family of cops and anything that keeps them from getting killed including banning binary triggers or anything else that gives a bad guy the upper hand is fine with me. Just so sad that the freaking red necks in this country don’t get it. These folks live in trailers but they want to be able to shoot $30 worth of ammo in 3 seconds just for fun. Buy some food for your family instead.
Rednecks have more common sense than you. Why? If cops do their duty and not what politicians say, I would gladly give up my guns including the ones that can shoot $ 30 of ammo in 3 seconds. Let us see how the police protected the people of Seattle, Portland, New York City, Chicago, Baltimore, etc etc etc. When their mayor says do not enforce the law on the rioters because they vote for me, did cops say to the mayor, I am sorry I cannot stand by and watch BLM burn, loot and hurt people. No, every officer obeyed their mayor’s orders to the letter. IAW the police officers do things that are in their own self interest and in a pinch choose themselves over the law abiding citizen who were begging for them for help. I never forget those images during the summer. I will never give up my guns that can shoot $ 30 of ammo in 3 seconds even if the cops may be endangered by them, because I am doing what the cops did to the people. IT IS NOT IN MY SELF INTEREST.
Bob, that’s the kind of racist attitude we need to curb. A typical redneck person is far better at feeding their family than most folks. Us redneck folks have an ability to live off the land in ways Bob’s of the world would never attempt. The redneck man typically has a job so he doesn’t have time to commit crimes and have warrants. Thugs on the other hand don’t know or do any of those things cause they require work! Just because you come from a family of law enforcement it in no way makes you better than anybody else. Your family chose a difficult profession, but that doesn’t make them anymore special than any other person of a “heroic” or difficult profession.
Bob,
I’m just wondering. You call this guy a redneck. It’s my understanding that when referring to rednecks you’re talking about white people with sunburned necks around their t-shirt. Of course the media doesn’t say what color this guy is but my guess is he’s black. Why? Because I’m a racist? No. The woman that came out before him was black and his name was Deon, which is a popular name for blacks. But people like you and the media don’t want to bring that up because it doesn’t fit your narrative. All these incidents of cops shooting blacks (George Floyd etc.) have one thing in common. The black guy didn’t do what the police asked. Here’s some advise that may save your life. If you don’t like what the police officer tells you to do….bring it up to the judge or file a law suit. Don’t act like an idiot asshole (IAH) and resist arrest and get yourself killed. Just a suggestion. On the other hand if you want to resist arrest and act like an idiot asshole, you may be removing one more IAH from the planet, which may be a good thing. And as to your banning of auto fire, the 2nd amendment was provided for a reason:
“A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they
should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of
independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would
include their own government.” – George Washington
Deon is obviously a piece of dirt that needed to be killed. Too damn bad an officer lost his life & another was wounded in order to get Deon to the dirt nap in Hell that he deserved!
Hey everyone, QUIT voting for Leftist Democrats who will throw everything they can into the path of law enforcement in order to “protect” the “Deons” of this world!
At least no tax money will be wasted on Deon–his life didn’t matter
Some dumbass anti-gunner will try to pass another law on ALREADY ILLEGAL machine gun parts that WERE NOT LEGAL or purchased LEGALLY after NOT passing a BACKGROUND CHECK. Moral of the story, LIBERAL IDIOTS think passing another new law making already ILLEGAL things will make them MORE ILLEGAL and stop ILLEGAL GUNS from being used by FELONS, MURDERERS and DEON’s who give a f*ck about their laws in the first place. Keep voting in the same ignorant bastards over and over and expecting different results is the definition of insanity.
It’s not really a design flaw, it’s engineered that way. F/A Glock 18’s are used worldwide by military, security, and LEO’s. It’s the firearm the Glock “extended” 30+ round mag’s are intended for, since a standard-size mag dumps pretty quick with that rate of fire.
And Houston, with it’s libtard mayor, sheriff, county judge, etc. are, like so many cities/counties, letting violent offenders (including murderers) out on P/R bonds a lot faster than they are arresting them.
That has to be extremely discouraging to LEO’s when something tragic happens to one of theirs and the perp. has likely been recently arrested and set free. I’d wager the turd that committed this heinous act is a repeater, likely a felon who shouldn’t even be in a dwelling where a firearm is kept.
My heart goes out to these intrepid First Responders and their families…..
I am not sure how the law prohibiting ownership of post 1986 manufactured automatic weapons is consistent with 2nd Amendment. It is certainly law that favors rich.
The “law” also prohibits Law Abiding Citizens from having NEWER fully automatic weapons! If anyone believes that ANY LAW is going to stop the Bad Guys, including Terrorists both foreign and domestic, from getting Military Grade Weapons, is a FOOL like most liberals and Democrat Politicians! How do they think the Cartels get those weapons?
The problem is that beside being Stupid they are also Corrupt which is a Extremely Bad Combination.
If those constantly crying gunn control would instead focus on criminal control, it would would be a much more effective way of ridding our community of the human garbage that committ these acts of violence. Unfortunately, the big cities prosectors offices are filled with leftist radicals who would rather blame society for the behavior of these criminals, end up injecting racial overtones into every situation. If this country would fully reinstate the death penalty, and actually use it, instead of the joke that it is now with endless appeals that delay the execution of these predators by sometimes a decade or longer, and prosectors would put criminals away instead of slapping them on the wrist only to repeat their crimes over and over, we might make some progress. Unfortunately, we have complete fools running many cities like Houston, who would rather take the easy route and constantly blame guns instead of thr prepertrator..
It turns A GLOCK into a machine gun. It is a GLOCK design failure that does not apply to any other brand of handgun.
Its not a Glock failure it is a failure of the court system. I am sure this guy has been in and out of jail more times than you can count,
Blame a Glock?! ANY pistol can be converted to full auto by a clever gunsmith! Didn’t Dillinger have a full auto 1911 with a “tommygun” front grip? My only fear is that when things like this happen, it’s one step closer to more gun control. And it only seems like it goes in one direction and not the other.
I am equally concerned that felons can obtain black market firearms and that some may be converted into machine guns in an attempt to overwhelm the police and citizens but that is not a brand specific flaw. That is a flaw in the felon who refuses to be deterred from their goal. The severity of the laws already in existence that outlaw this and other tools and tactics used to separate us from life and property will never be enough to stop bad people from doing truly horrible things. The only deterrent to bad people with weapons is good people with weapons. All of the proposed laws, boycotts, recalls and police or government reforms we could dream up would never change the fact that it took two good people to take down one that went bad at great personal cost to themselves and their families. That is one of the costs of freedom.
It is not a design failure, or a Glock only issue. We have had machine pistols about as long as we have had pistols. In fact, making the pistol fire semi-automatically instead of automatically requires MORE parts and engineering. As the other poster pointed out, a 1911s converted to full auto were used by Dillinger and associates at the 1934 Little Bohemia shootout in Wisconsin. This was some 18 years after Steyr made one of the first machine pistols, the Steyr M1912/P16, which if you check your calendar, is more than 100 years ago! Plus the fact that the suspect used a machine pistol made basically zero difference in the outcome of this interaction. The reason the officers got hit was due to more to careless tactics and positioning than due to the inherent deadliness of the ersatz Glock 18. Had he shot them with a normal pistol or an AR or shotgun or even a semi-auto hunting rifle, the outcome would have been the same if not worse. These machine pistols are difficult to control, even for experienced operators at close distance What they excel at, as seen in the video, is causing your aggressors to scatter and seek cover. This is one of the traits that make them somewhat popular among Israeli SF and exec protect people. The extremely intimidating high rate of fire from an unexpected source causes buys you some time to extricate yourself from an ambush or maneuver to a better engagement position while the op force is going “WTF was that?”
Instead of whining, ask yourself what law you could pass that would REALISTICALLY prevent this from happening? Make it more illegal to illegally modify a legal weapon? What would prevent a criminal, who by definition does not follow the law, from doing something illegal to his (likely) illegally possessed weapon?
If you think that this is some sort of design failure of Glock, you don’t know much about firearms design or history. Glock is far from being the only manufacturer to use the safe trigger (or a variant), so, if there IS a “design failure”, it ABSOLUTELY applies to other brands. S&W was successfully sued by Glock, and gets royalty payments on all the “Sigma” line of guns. Besides, not deciding that their particular design COULD be exploited is not a “design failure” any more that the fact that a driver can set the cruise control and fall asleep. SMH