[Gustomaximus]

Obviously not supporting having these switches, but wondering if it makes shooting more dangerous or less.

My non expert guess is the people using these 'pray and spray' in something I suspect is very hard to control. This would serve to make a heap of wild shots plus make them run out of bullets very quickly for any kind of follow up or ongoing fight. But at the same time send a heap of bullets fast.

I wonder if it becomes one of those events that on the surface looks far worse but statistically is not. Or more unintended bystander deaths?

To be clear. I don't know the answer or are promoting one, but it has the feeling of something that might have a counter initiative answer.

[dh2022]

How would “Send a heap of bullets fast” be less dangerous than “send less bullets”? When a bullet gets out of the gun it has a chance to hurt someone (including innocent people). A bullet that remains in the gun hurts no-one…

[Gustomaximus]

In my very limited experience of firing a handgun you shoot with a slight pause between shots to bring the muzzle back down on target.

If you go full auto, I suspect the shooter would find their muzzle going higher and higher so after the first couple shots they are shooting way high. So if they have 15 bullets in the magazine 3 are good and 12 are way off target type deal. Whereas if they were pulling the trigger at each shot they might aim the '12 air shots' more effectively.

Pure speculation but as I said has the feel of one of those things that may be counter intuitive to what you would initially expect.

[bitfilped]

It depends if you mean the person being shot at or bystanders. I imagine in most scenarios where people are using switches they have little to no firearm training in general and especially not any with switches engaged (it's not like you can use them at the range.) Their shots are probably more dangerous for bystanders and less dangerous for the specific person being targeted when compared to someone shooting a standard pistol that has training or plenty of range time.

[rdtsc]

I guess it depends why they are shooting. Is it to injure or kill as many people in an area, or shoot a particular individual at some considerable distance. I think the GP post is looking at from the perspective of the gun owner? Even from their perspective it may not make sense to modify the weapon. Obviously, not shooting at all and injuring anyone is the best, in general.

[dh2022]

Looking from the perspective of the gun owner makes sense.

[davidbanham]

Accuracy matters. The Glock 18 is the factory produced fully automatic. It’s intended to be used with a brace to assist recoil management and accuracy.

It’s possible to fire full auto with reasonable accuracy and no brace. The amount of training it would take, though, that shooter is likely to be just as effective firing semi automatic.

[qball]

>that might have a counter initiative answer.

Handguns really aren't that great at killing a target- you're trading off power for the ability to even get the gun into the fight (without detection, in this case).

So ideally, you shoot them a bunch of times. Shotguns do this quite effectively; a better view of one is that it's 8 handguns duct-taped together and firing all at once (that's effectively what happens- for anti-personnel use, 8 9mm-sized pellets come out the end when you pull the trigger). But shotguns are large and don't lend themselves to getting tucked into your pants.

Thus, why not have the individual pellets come out one at a time from a pistol that you can conceal? Pistols can theoretically spit them out really fast, so why not just have that happen as long as you have the trigger held down- you have the equivalent of about 4 shotgun shells at your disposal with a standard 33-round magazine, so if you're spending 1/4th of your magazine per target you're (on paper) just as effective as you would have been using a shotgun in that scenario.

The problem comes from not knowing how to use one, and the consequences of not knowing how to shoot compound when you use a pistol like this. Pistols are relatively difficult to use (which is why things that make them easier and more intuitive to aim make gang gunfights deadlier- this is part of why the TEC-9 is on every AWB list in existence) in the best of times, which is part of why gang gunfights look more like a bunch of Harry Potter cosplayers waving their magic wands casting 'gun' than anything anyone else would consider proper marksmanship, and that's before you add the part that makes the gun veer off in a random direction and waste half your ammo into the apartment complex that was behind the guy.

If you're going to be a gangster the least you could do is actually shoot straight. Fortunately, the city of Toronto banned all the ranges (as an anti-crime measure, lmao), so even if they did want to figure out how to shoot straight that's not an option they have.

>Or more unintended bystander deaths?

All else being equal, people randomly spraying bullets will cause more of this (and more property damage). And it's more difficult for the police to deal with; I'd be quite a bit more afraid to deal with gangland crime (aka 'all of Toronto') when getting magdumped might actually get through that vest or get me shot in the face.