The ProPublica Article I'm responding to
There's some interesting angles to this. First we know that the Glock was not designed not accept full-auto sears. The original purpose (military and police use) was not compatible with full auto fire, and they later designed a totally different slide and frame to make a full auto version of the gun. The G18c and related full Auto factory Glocks operates differently then the drop in auto sear. And by comparison, the autosear is a less desirable alternative, as it tends to damage guns over time, it operates by overriding safety features and often causes jams or malfunctions.
That said, the Glock pistol has undergone updates and revisions since the autosear was developed. It can be reasonably assumed they knew about the switch and how it connected. In those revisions Glock could have completely reengineered the slide making current auto sears incompatible with new models. However, this would have required significant design and testing, would violate contracts they already had, would negate approvals and reviews already made not to mention creating a whole new "Glock 2.0" line of spare parts that are not compatible with the prolific first generations.
There is precedent to this where items used as intended or designed are safe but are cabable of being misused or modified for misuse are recalled and redesigned to prevent misuse. This presents certain logistical issues for Glocks as over a million are impoted every year. Unregulated slides (the part that interfaces with the autosear) have been manufactured and sold for more then a decade, and it is the most prolific police issue or approved pistol in the country. The Glock is the standard pistol by which all other polymer-framed guns (and to som all other handguns) are measured and recalling them all or declaring them all machineguns is likely to have unintended consquences.
At the time of it's invention, the Glock Auto Sear was a novelty among the machinegun dealers and didn't factor into crime until over 30 years later in the 20teens when cheap Chinese imports showed up online, sold under "novelty" or "toy". As the part didn't look like a gun part, most filters missed them until thousands were imported. The BATFE cracked down on purchasers which energized the 3d print community to prove nothing can be banned and media coverage drove up demand. Apparently they are now increadibly common on guns confiscated in Chicago and other places. This leads to a signifigant issue in unaimed wild shooting that affects communites more then semiauto fire would.
I personally think it's unreasonable to require a redesign that will effectively ruin a business line because a third party found a way to add features, even dangerous ones, that were not designed in. On the other hand, businesses demoing full auto Glocks legally with dealer sample Autosears and then selling Glocks that can accept them in an area that has this problem is troubling at best.
I don't blame Glock for making a gun that someone else can add an autosear onto. I do blame a gun store in an area where this is a problem renting a demo machine gun of this type and also selling Glocks that are able to accept such modifications. It's a concurrence of legal activities that implies support for illegal activities.
It's legal for a gun store to sell Glocks. It's legal for a machine gun manufacturer to add an auto sear to a Glock. And it's legal for a machine guns dealer to possess and rent out such a gun for its on-premesis range. It's legal to be in business for any of these things in close proximity to an area where illegal machine gun creation and use is prevalent. But all of this together is like renting short barrelled shotguns to test and practice with on the premises, while selling regular shotguns next door to a hacksaw store in a town where many crimes are committed with short barrel shotguns. Everything is legal but it also serves the local criminal demand.
The gun community will deny any responsibility for the crimes of others. As long as they are on the right side of the law, they see this as unreasonable prosecution. To their credit, how much does one have to do to prevent unlawful use? Many semiautos can act as if they are full auto with a shoestring or simply by holding the gun loosely. Replacing parts or cutting metal will always be a method to make a semiautomatic gun a fullauto gun. This lends credence to the theory of restricting semiautomatics like machine guns. There's a whole 'nother conversation as semi-autos are demonstrably more effective tools (for killing) then maunal actions are. In the counterarguement, the improvements are nceessary to keep the defensive uses universal among people of many abilitiy levels.
On the other hand, the gun community maintains that it needs make no concessions to gun control in the name of public safety, and I just can't agree with that. What the concessions that are needed are is up for debate among everyone except the people with the guns. That's a roblem that is ramping up opposition to their beliefs and talking points.
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