Anti-Glock Litigation Now Targeting Gun Stores Too

The gun control lobby hasn't given up its goal of banning handguns, but they're now engaged in a piecemeal effort that targets what is arguably the most popular producer of handguns in the country: Glock. 

In addition to California's newly passed bill banning the sale of Glocks beginning in July of next year, New Jersey, Minnesota, and the cities of Chicago and Baltimore are suing the gunmaker and seeing an injunction on sales of Glock handguns in their states, claiming that the guns are "readily converted" to machine guns and pose a threat to public safety (while still keeping them available for law enforcement, naturally). 

Now Seattle is joining in with a lawsuit of its own, but along with suing the gun maker the city is also suing three gun sellers, arguing that the gun stores are "selling and marketing Glock pistols, thereby contributing to the nuisance of crimes committed with Glock pistols that people illegally convert to shoot rapidly with one trigger pull." 

According to the lawsuit, Rainier Arms and Pantel Tactical are authorized Glock Dealers who contribute to the public nuisance of Glocks with switches by placing additional Glocks into the local gun trade. The lawsuit states that Rainier Arms includes a step-by-step guide on its website for modifying the Glock by changing components of the gun, such as slide cover plates, adding alternative barrels, trigger modifications and compensators that allow for quicker and easier followup shots.

According to the lawsuit, Rainier Arms has promoted fully automatic firearms on its social media pages and has sold at least one Glock that was sold and then was then converted or attempted to be converted to an automatic weapon that was later recovered by Seattle Police. The lawsuit alleges that Pantel Tactical has also sold at least one Glock that was later converted or attempted to be converted to an automatic weapon.

According to the lawsuit, in September 2023, the Seattle Police Department recovered a converted Glock from a burglary suspect, and it was later found to have been sold by Rainier Arms. In May 2024, the Seattle Police Department recovered a converted Glock that was used in a shooting in West Seattle, and it was later found to have been sold by Pantel Tactical.

The lawsuit doesn't accuse the gun stores of breaking any laws or selling the switches that can illegally modify semi-automatic handguns to fire full auto. Under Seattle's theory, simply selling and promoting the most popular pistols in the country opens up FFLs to litigation that can put them out of business. Once their doors are closed, they won't be selling any more Glocks. They won't be selling any guns, which is precisely the objective of the anti-gun lobby. 

This lawsuit is akin to suing InBev for making alcoholic beverages that can be misused, as well as grocery stores that put Budweiser on endcaps or run sales on six-packs. But it's also part of a concerted effort to do an end-run around the Heller decision. If handguns can't be banned in general, the gun control lobby will go after the most common and popular pistols on the market. If they're successful at using the courts to enact a ban on Glocks, they won't stop there. In fact, they're already trying to use that same argument to go after AR-15s and other semi-automatic rifles; some individuals are illegally converting them to fire full-auto, therefore the guns should be banned because they're too easily converted into machineguns. 

Most of these lawsuits are still in the early stages, but hopefully they'll soon be dismissed under the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. Until we start seeing that happen, though, expect more anti-gun cities and states to join the growing number of locales that are trying to take commonly owned arms off the market. 

Editor’s Note: The radical left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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