Introduction to Cook County’s Machine-Gun Possession Policy
Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke is keeping a controversial campaign pledge to get tough on people accused of possessing machine guns, a Chicago Sun-Times analysis has found. Soon after taking office Dec. 1, O’Neill Burke said her prosecutors would seek pretrial detention for anyone charged with possession of a machine gun or an extended magazine — asking judges to keep them in jail while they await trial.
Background on Machine-Gun Possession in Cook County
She pointed to a “15-fold” increase in recoveries of weapons with illegal machine-gun conversion devices since 2019 in Chicago. Forty of the devices had been recovered in 2019. That figure rose to 604 in 2024, according to federal statistics. The Sun-Times examined detention decisions involving machine-gun cases since the state’s Pre-Trial Fairness Act took effect in 2023. That included 125 cases filed by former Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s prosecutors and 138 under O’Neill Burke.
Pre-Trial Fairness Act and Its Impact
Under Foxx, prosecutors sought detention in 78% of the cases in which a machine-gun charge was the most serious one. Judges approved 41% of those requests. That was between Sept. 18, 2023, when the state’s Pre-Trial Fairness Act — which eliminated cash bail in Illinois and set up a process in which judges decide whether someone should stay in jail until trial based on their potential danger to the community — took effect, and Dec. 1, 2024. That was when O’Neill Burke was sworn in to succeed Foxx, who didn’t seek re-election after two terms as state’s attorney.
O’Neill Burke’s Policy on Machine-Gun Possession
From Dec. 1, 2024 to Sept. 1, O’Neill Burke’s prosecutors sought detention in 97% of machine-gun cases. Judges granted their requests more than 76% of the time. O’Neill Burke is directing her prosecutors to seek pretrial jail for everyone charged with having devices that illegally turn handguns into automatic firearms. “It’s her position that individuals who are walking in the streets with that kind of weaponry are not doing it for self-protection,” said Yvette Loizon, chief of policy for O’Neill Burke’s office. “Those weapons are insanely dangerous.”
Former Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx.
Concerns from the Public Defender’s Office
Cook County Public Defender Sharone Mitchell Jr. said it’s unfair to routinely hold people in jail pending trial on those charges. He said many people are carrying those weapons to defend themselves — not to use them “offensively.” And those are the weapons that typically are available on the street, where people who don’t have a state permit must go to buy a gun to protect themselves, he said. “Maybe they have been shot, their family member has been shot,” Mitchell said. “Blanket policies are really dangerous for the administration of justice.”
The Proliferation of Automatic Weapons in Chicago
Over the last five years, automatic weapons have become a growing problem in Chicago. Tiny devices known as “switches” are attached to handguns — usually Glocks — to cheaply, easily and illegally convert them into automatic weapons that can fire dozens of bullets in seconds. Automatic handguns have been used repeatedly in mass shootings in Chicago. In 2023, Gov. JB Pritzker signed a law outlawing switches and extended magazines, which can hold dozens of bullets. Switches already were illegal under federal law, which classifies the devices as machine guns even on their own, without being attached to a gun.
National Gathering of Prosecutors
In June, O’Neill Burke’s office hosted a national gathering of prosecutors to discuss stopping the proliferation of switches, many of which are created with 3D printers or shipped from China under the guise of being other kinds of household devices. At the gathering, federal agents fired switch-equipped Glocks to demonstrate their firepower. “I’ve been a prosecutor for a long time,” Loizon said. “I’ve been around the criminal justice system for a very long time. I will tell you that watching those guns being shot live literally took my breath away. “If this policy is going to deter even one person from carrying an MCD” — a machine-gun conversion device — “then that’s wonderful,” she said. “It’s important we implement a policy that ensures public safety.”
Yvette Loizon (right) is chief of policy for Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke.
Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere / Sun-Times
Comprehensive Presentation to the Court
O’Neill Burke has assigned five investigators to dig into the background of anyone arrested so prosecutors can give judges a full picture of whether those arrested should be detained until trial, Loizon said. “They make a really comprehensive presentation to the court,” she said. “And so I think that we are seeing more det
