Glock Switches a major issue in Marion County: MCPO

INDIANAPOLIS — "It's too easy to get a real gun in Indianapolis," Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears said.

Mears said one challenge the city is facing, is young people buying guns off of social media and then altering the weapons.

"The biggest issue that we see in young people right now is the Glock switches, which is something you print on a 3D printer, and it turns an ordinary handgun from a semi-automatic weapon into an automatic weapon. We are seeing a significant increase in those types of cases and those cases are really concerning for us because it gives someone the ability to fire literally 20 shots in a matter of seconds," Mears said.

WRTV asked Mears how they can monitor where youth are getting the weapons.

"That's the challenge and that's what we are concerned with, with this new law. We think of people we are going to see carrying weapons in our community, loaded, when there is not much law enforcement there is not much they can do to investigate that possession of firearms. You are going to have more people have their guns exposed, leave guns in vehicles see an uptick in thefts. Often times those lead to more violent crime cases," Mears said.

"The challenge we see now is the age is decreasing in terms of who has the firearm. You didn't use to get many cases with 13-14-year-olds with guns. Now, we are seeing that more common and that is the challenge we are facing. It used to be 17 or 18-year-olds and now we are seeing 13 or 14-year-olds with handguns and that becomes more challenging in the criminal justice system," Mears said.