Mother lobbies for tougher punishments for people putting switches on firearms

Yahoo

09-04-2025

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A mother is speaking out as she tries to encourage lawmakers to stiffen penalties for criminals caught attaching a tiny device to their Glock to make it a machine gun.
Janice Walker said her son's shooter did just that — opening fire in the middle of the day and leaving destruction and devastation in a matter of three seconds.
It was April 3, 2023, in the middle of the afternoon.
'I got a call at work from my brother who told me to come to his house,' Walker said. 'And then when I get to his house, and the street is taped off. Nothing is clicking inside of my head as to what is going on.'
A captain finally told her to go to the hospital. Her son Justin Walker had been shot.
'When the ambulance came to the hospital, he was not breathing. They did not know how long he had been without oxygen,' she said. 'I go to the waiting area with my family. My child is just a little rolling script at the bottom of the screen. That an unidentified male has been shot. You've attempted to reduce his life to not even a full story. That's what this city has turned into.'
She said worry started to set in.
'That's when I find out that this is not just one bullet. There were multiple shots,' Walker said. 'One of the shots went into his neck. They say if he survived, he would be paralyzed from the neck down.'
Doctors revived him again and again.
'The doctor had to literally pop his heart with her hands to get him going again,' she said. 'They get him to a point where they could not close him all the way up, because there was still some other things that they needed to do, but they get him to a stabilization point. That's when they sent him to the ICU room.'
She got to see her son in the ICU. She stayed by his side through the night until the next morning, when doctors told her they didn't think he would survive his injuries.
She said her final goodbye.
'I put my hand on his chest until he stopped. I had to immediately leave the room, because I could no longer breathe. My one and only son gone,' Walker said with tears in eyes. 'I'm living through this when I don't even want to. I'm trying to fight so nobody else experiences this.'
Shelby County detectives said they found security footage that showed a man park on the street, exchange words with her son, pull out a gun 'equipped with a device known to detectives as a Switch,' and open fire.
A switch is a tiny device that turns a Glock into an automatic weapon. Last year, law enforcement showed WREG Investigators why they consider it an emerging threat as they fired 15 rounds in a second.
It can fire a thousand rounds per minute, and even in the hands of an expert, it is tough to control.
What's even more unnerving, the Memphis Shelby Crime Commission says since 2021, Memphis police have seized over 500 guns with switches.
Some cases were turned over to the feds since the switch is illegal under federal law and can come with up to a decade in prison.
However, many cases are prosecuted by the state where we found out under Tennessee law, the penalty is a Class E felony, which is the lowest type of felony.
Tuesday, the senate judiciary committee discussed two bills that would change that.
One would make the possession of a firearm with a switch a Class C felony.
The other was filed by TN Senator London Lamar, (D-Memphis). She said her bill would get the state law to mimic the federal law.
Sen. Lamar stated between the two bills, change should happen.
'So that they won't have to depend on federal government to hold folks accountable for using these in the commission of a crime,' Sen. Lamar said. 'It's not infringing on anybody's Second Amendment rights. It's already something that's technically illegal in the commission of a crime.'
Sen. Lamar invited Walker to speak to senators last week, so they could hear the lives the devices are impacting.
'I am hoping that it reaches their hearts and understand that you won't have very many constituents if they're allowed to continue to do this,' Walker said.
The man accused of killing her son is facing a long list of charges, including murder and reckless endangerment. He's out on a $150,000 bond.
Deputies said they found a weapon, drugs and a two-year-old child in the car when they arrested him.
They say they also found bullets had gone into nearby homes that day, since a switch makes a gun so hard to control.
'I cannot imagine going to work and coming home trying to figure out why are there holes in my wall? What is going on with my garage? Even being the person that was sitting there working from home who witnessed this, who could not sleep for many nights because of this,' Walker said. 'My thought process is what kind of life are you living that this is what you need?'
Walker said her son Justin was working on getting his first apartment. His life was coming together. He had so much he wanted to accomplish.
He was only 25 years old.
'There was nothing about that said don't invest in him, because he won't be here longer. That's why it hurts the most,' she said. 'I have to keep going, because I cannot reduce his life to a little rolling script at the bottom of a page. He deserved so much more.'
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