OKLAHOMA CITY – Launched just over a year ago, “Project Switch Off” is a federal strategy to combat violent crime and targets illegal – and lethal – machinegun conversion devices (MCDs).
In the 13 months since the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Oklahoma launched “Project Switch Off” on Nov. 29, 2023, law enforcement officers have seized 185 of the conversion devices and 298 illegally possessed firearms, and charged 44 individuals with federal offenses. “The clear and immediate danger of machinegun conversion devices is real, and their proliferation is ever-increasing,” said U.S. Attorney Robert J. Troester. “We simply cannot stand by and ignore the deadly consequences these devices present to the public and law enforcement.”
Under federal law, manufacturing, selling, transporting, or possessing MCDs is illegal. “Project Switch Off” targets devices that turn semi-automatic weapons into fully automatic machineguns. Regardless of whether they are attached to a firearm, MCDs constitute machineguns under federal law.
The campaign is intended to educate the public about the danger and illegality of MCDs, train law enforcement on how to identify MCDs, remove MCDs from streets, and hold accountable those who manufacture, sell, or possess the illegal and deadly devices.
Of the 44 defendants charged with federal offenses, 29 pleaded guilty or were convicted at trial, and 18 of them have been sentenced, with an average term of more than 80 months in federal prison.
In addition, law enforcement officers seized 185 MCDs, two 3-D printers used to manufacture MCDs, 298 firearms and 102,285 rounds of ammunition.
2 case examples An example of a “Project Switch Off” case was that of Charles Lamar Scott, 36.
Public records show that on Dec. 26, 2022, Scott, after having consumed methamphetamine, committed an armed robbery of a CVS Pharmacy in Oklahoma City; during the holdup he assaulted a CVS employee, forcibly took a handgun from a retired police officer and discharged it during the robbery. He then fired a handgun equipped with a machinegun conversion device at law enforcement officers during his attempted escape. Scott pleaded guilty to the federal charges on Sept. 22, 2023.
Facing a maximum 37 to 40 years’ incarceration, Scott was sentenced May 10, 2024, to 25 years in federal prison. At age 16 he was sentenced to 15 years in a Mississippi state prison.
Another example is that of Emanuel Lopez, 20, who was arrested based on an affidavit filed by a special agent with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) who formerly was a Border Patrol agent for five years.
The HSI officer informed the court that in May and June 2024, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents at Los Angeles intercepted four packages shipped from China that were destined for Lopez at his home in Edmond, Oklahoma, and contained MCDs. The packages were falsely labeled on the shipping manifests as “auto parts,” “hardware accessories” and “decorative ornaments.”
Subsequent searches in law enforcement databases revealed eight prior shipments to Lopez’s residence from various shippers located in China. Those shipments “had successfully passed through customs without inspection” and their manifests listed them as “a mixture of auto parts, machine parts, camera parts, 3-D printer parts, and a flashlight,” the HSI agent reported.
Some of those shippers “have been associated with multiple seizures of parcels containing machinegun conversion devices shipped from China to the United States and addressed to other individuals,” the agent wrote.
On Nov. 25, Lopez admitted transporting machineguns without a license At sentencing, he faces up to five years in federal prison.
A “machinegun” is defined in federal law as “any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.”