The Alabama House of Representatives has passed a bill that would ban devices that turn semi-automatic handguns into automatic weapons, or machine guns.

HB36 by Rep. Phillip Ensler, D-Montgomery, passed by a vote of 60-38, with the no votes coming from Republicans. The bill would outlaw the devices that are sometimes called Glock switches and are illegal under federal law. The bill moves to the Senate.

Sheriffs, state troopers, and prosecutors attended a news conference with Ensler last week to urge passage of the bill. They said Glock switches pose a growing menace. They said there are limits on how many cases federal authorities can prosecute and that having a state law would help remove the devices from streets.

Several Republican lawmakers came to the mic Tuesday to say they opposed Ensler’s bill because they said it was an infringement on the 2nd Amendment. Rep. Shane Stringer, R-Mobile, who spent a career in law enforcement, said he was concerned it would start a trend that would lead to bans on, for example, magazines containing a certain number of rounds.

Rep. Russell Bedsole, a Republican who works for the Shelby County sheriff’s department, said he supported Ensler’s bill. Bedsole said he considered it a public safety issue, rather than a 2nd Amendment issue, because the devices turn handguns into something they were not designed to be, weapons that cannot be fired accurately.

At a press conference in December on the rising threat of converted machine guns, Ashley Lightner of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) said Glock switches allow a semiautomatic handgun to fire 20 rounds in one second.