California’s effort to limit the sale of handguns that can be converted into automatic weapons drew a swift challenge Wednesday, when the Trump administration sued the state over its new “Glock ban” law just hours after it went into effect.
The US Department of Justice is seeking a court order to block a controversial state law that limits where most Glock and Glock-style handguns can be sold. The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the Central District of California, also seeks to invalidate key parts of the state’s gun inventory — a list that states the types of guns Californians can legally purchase. In a statement on Wednesday, Acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche said both policies “stomp” on the rights of law-abiding Californians.
“The Second Amendment is a sacred right for all Americans, even those in California,” Blanche said. “California can’t ban America’s most popular gun brand.”
California Assembly Bill 1127 does not specifically call out the Glock brand, but rather targets any firearm with a specific mechanism that can be easily modified with a black market device. These simple “Glock switches” turn semiautomatic pistols into a weapon capable of firing 20 rounds per second with a single pull of the trigger.
Advances in 3D printing have made revolutionary devices widely available and cheap to produce. Federal authorities reported that they found 11,088 of them in criminal cases between 2019 and 2023. The switch was used in multiple shootings, including one Sacramento resulting in six deaths and 12 accidents in 2022.
The new law does not prevent the acquisition of affected firearms already owned by Californians, and includes exemptions for gun dealers, as well as law enforcement and military organizations.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the bill in October, and he maintains that gun laws are responsible for the decline in California’s crime rate and gun deaths.
“The Trump administration is once again trying to dismantle California’s gun safety laws,” Diana Crofts-Pelayo, a spokeswoman for the governor, said in a statement. “Our answer is simple – these laws save lives.”
The federal government argues in its appeal that California cannot ban legal automatic firearms simply because they can be illegally modified, adding that state and federal law already prohibit such gun modifiers. The US has compared California’s approach to banning conventional firearms because they can be illegally shortened.
The lawsuit also challenges California’s decades-old system, which requires new gun models to pass certain safety tests before they can be approved for retail sale. A federal judge partially blocked parts of the listing requirements in a separate 2023 lawsuit, which was appealed before the 9th Circuit. That lawsuit was filed by the California Rifle & Pistol Assn. and other gun rights supporters following a landmark 2022 decision by the US Supreme Court that set new standards for testing gun restrictions.
Under those new guidelines, the Trump administration wants a judge to find that California’s gun restrictions violate the 2nd Amendment, and is seeking an injunction to prevent the state from enforcing them.
The Trump administration is relying on a federal civil rights law that is often used against police departments accused of repeated constitutional violations, said California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and state Department of Justice agents qualify as peace officers and therefore violate the rights of gun owners whenever they enforce handgun restrictions.
Bonta, who was named in the lawsuit, has a winning record in court with the Trump administration, and has obtained at least 12 final court decisions and more than 35 preliminary injunctions or emergency orders.
“We can’t fear another politically motivated case,” said Crofts-Pelayo, Newsom’s spokeswoman. “We will continue to protect the laws that protect Californians and keep dangerous weapons off our streets.”
