Feds sue California over 'Glock ban'

LOS ANGELES (CN) — The U.S. Department of Justice sued the state of California on Wednesday over a recently enacted ban on certain types of handguns that can easily converted into fully automatic weapons, including most Glock and Glock-style pistols.

“The Second Amendment is a sacred right belonging to all Americans, even those in California. California cannot ban the most popular type of handgun in America,” said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche in a written statement. “We will work to stop this blatant trampling of our rights by the California government to protect the rights of lawful gun owners.”

First developed for the Austrian army in the 1980s, Glocks and Glock copies have become the most popular handgun in the United States, and the firearm of choice for the majority of police departments in the country, as well as the FBI. In the late 1990s, a 22-year-old Venezuelan man invented the “Glock switch,” a simple device that, when attached to the rear side of a Glock, effectively turns the semiautomatic pistol into a fully automatic machine gun, capable of firing at a rate of up to 1,200 rounds per minute, according to the gun control advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety.

The switches have proliferated in the 2020s, some manufactured in China, some with the use of 3D printers. At least one of the guns in a 2022 mass shooting in Sacramento left six people dead and twice as many injured was a converted Glock.

In 2025, Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB 1127, which prohibited gun dealers from selling “any semiautomatic machine gun-convertible pistol,” became known popularly as the “Glock ban.”

“Apparently, the state believes it can outlaw perfectly legal and safe firearms if those firearms can be converted into illegal firearms,” the Department of Justice says in its lawsuit, filed in federal court in Orange County. “This is not the law. A legal shotgun can be turned into an illegal sawed-off shotgun in a matter of seconds with a common hacksaw. Surely, this does not mean the state can outlaw shotguns.”

The Trump administration leans heavily on the 2022 landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which stiffened Second Amendment protections. “When the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct. The government must then justify its regulation by demonstrating that it is consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the 6-3 majority.

“Glock and Glock-style handguns are in common use,” the Justice Department writes in its complaint. “Indeed, as set forth in this section, they are the most popular handgun in America. There is no historical tradition analogous to a ban of a weapon in common use.”

The department also challenges California’s 2003 Unsafe Handgun Act, which banned certain handguns from being sold if they don’t have certain safety features, or fail to meet safety requirements. The government claims those regulations are also unconstitutional under Bruen.

Provisions in the Unsafe Handgun Act, the government writes, “unquestionably infringe on the right to keep and beararms because the UHA prevents California citizens from acquiring state-of-the-art handguns for self-defense.”

A spokesperson for California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in an email, “California’s gun safety laws helped drive firearm death rates to record lows in our state and are a blueprint for reducing gun violence nationwide. We will review the complaint and respond as appropriate in court.”

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