Panel divided over gun-rule changes: DOJ urges penalties for machine-gun conversion devices; defenders warn of disparate impact

At a public hearing before the United States Sentencing Commission, the Department of Justice urged broad changes to the firearms guideline to address machine-gun conversion devices (MCDs) and to retain or lower proof requirements for enhancements tied to stolen or serial-number-altered firearms.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Paige Messick argued that conversion devices are inherently dangerous and that the guideline currently fails to reflect the cumulative risk posed when an MCD is paired with a large-capacity magazine or sold to a prohibited person. "An unaffixed MCD is not a collector's item. It's not a trinket," Messick said. "If you have an MCD, you're almost certainly either intending to use it to turn your gun into a machine gun or you're planning to transfer it to someone so they can turn their gun into a machine gun."

DOJ and elements of the criminal-law bench also objected to…