California Lawmakers Defend New ‘Glock Ban’ in Face of Trump Lawsuit

The ban on Glock-style handguns, AB 1127, took effect Wednesday. It prohibits the sale of pistols with a specific trigger design that allows them to be converted into fully automatic weapons using a small device known as a “switch,” sometimes made on a 3D printer.

Lawmakers pointed to a 2022 mass shooting near the state Capitol in Sacramento, which killed six people and wounded a dozen more, as an example of the danger posed by converted weapons.

“California won’t back down in the face of threats from Donald Trump and the NRA,” Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, D-Encino, one of the bill’s authors, said in a statement on Wednesday. “As a parent and lawmaker, I refuse to stand idly by while our schools and communities are being threatened by illegal gun violence.”

Though the Glock brand is not directly named in the new law, the DOJ’s complaint argues the law amounts to a ban on the country’s most popular handgun, citing analyst estimates that Glock held nearly two-thirds of the U.S. handgun market as of 2020. The complaint compares the law to banning shotguns because they could be illegally sawed off, arguing that the ability to convert a legal weapon doesn’t justify banning it.

James Gibbons-Shapiro, an assistant district attorney of Santa Clara County who oversees the office’s victim services unit, said the law addresses a threat he’s seen up close. His team has responded to two mass shootings since 2019, which includes the 2021 shooting at a VTA rail yard in San José that killed nine people.

“You shouldn’t be able to sell a gun that can easily convert to a machine gun with a plastic insert,” Gibbons-Shapiro said. “It’s illegal to have a machine gun under federal law. Those are weapons of war.”

He said the law is part of a broader local effort — including gun violence restraining orders and prosecutions of people manufacturing untraceable “ghost guns” — aimed at preventing mass shootings before they happen.

“These laws do not prevent guns from being sold in California,” he said. “They are trying to make sure that people who buy guns buy guns that are safe.”

Adam Wilson, California director for Gun Owners of California, said his organization was “ecstatic” about the lawsuit, arguing the state is illegally banning a firearm in common use. He dismissed the argument that Glock-style pistols are uniquely dangerous simply because they can be illegally modified.

“If the state of California is going to argue potential for misuse on one of the most commonly owned handguns in America, they can argue potential for misuse for any weapon that’s ever existed,” Wilson said. “Even things that aren’t weapons, like cars.”

The DOJ’s lawsuit also revives a fight over the state’s handgun roster, and targets state requirements that new handguns include a chamber-load indicator and a mechanism that prevents firing when the magazine is removed. Those requirements have faced a separate legal challenge in Boland v. Bonta. In 2023, a federal judge struck down its safety standards, including a microstamping rule — where handguns transfer identifiers like make, model and serial number onto fired shell casings — the state has since delayed to 2028.

Wilson argued gun owners shouldn’t need government-mandated features on their weapons.

“Gun owners are generally very law-abiding and responsible citizens,” he said. “They don’t need the government to babysit what kind of features should or should not be on the weapons that they choose for self-defense.”

Adam Skaggs, chief counsel and vice president at Giffords Law Center, an anti-gun violence advocacy group led by former Rep. Gabby Giffords, D-Arizona, defended the law’s narrow scope.

“AB 1127 does not ban Glocks outright,” he said. “The law prohibits gun dealers from selling firearms that can be easily converted into illegal fully automatic weapons.”

Giffords’ analysis has pointed to Glock’s own response as evidence the approach is working: after the law passed, the company announced a redesign of some newer models intended to make them harder to convert, though it remains unclear whether the changes are effective enough to deter criminal use.

The lawsuit is the latest in a string of legal battles between the Trump administration and California, which has separately sued or been sued by the federal government over immigration enforcement and other policies in recent months.

Gibbons-Shapiro’s office has spent years responding to gun violence cases, and so he hopes the law will hold. “I hope the way this lawsuit shakes out is that everybody sees that these laws are reasonable for the safety of people in our community,” he said.