NRA sues MD officials over Glock pistol ban

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The National Rifle Association and two other gun rights groups sued Maryland officials Tuesday over freshly signed legislation that effectively bans the sale of Glock pistols in the state.

The advocacy groups filed their lawsuit in federal court challenging the law on Second Amendment grounds hours after Maryland Gov. Wes Moore signed the legislation, which bans the manufacture, sale, purchase, receipt or transfer of “machine-gun-convertible pistols.”

The law defines such pistols as semiautomatic firearms with cruciform trigger bars that can easily be turned into machine guns by installing or attaching a pistol converter, sometimes called a “Glock switch,” as a replacement for the slide’s backplate. Maryland State Police will be required to adopt regulations to implement the legislation, including the publication of a list of banned machine-gun-convertible pistols.

The NRA, joined by the Firearms Policy Coalition and Second Amendment Foundation, named Moore as well as Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown and State Police Superintendent Michael Jackson as defendants. Their lawsuit is likely to be joined by another legal challenge from local Second Amendment group Maryland Shall Issue. That organization’s president, Mark Pennak, said Wednesday that his group would be filing a complaint “shortly.”

Spokespeople for Moore did not immediately return a request for comment, and representatives for Brown and Jackson declined to comment.

The ban was hailed by gun control groups as a critical measure in response to “DIY machine guns” appearing at crime scenes throughout the state. It sets penalties of up to three years in prison or a maximum fine of $5,000 for violations and is slated to go into effect Jan. 1, 2027.

The NRA’s challenge largely hinges on the landmark 2008 Supreme Court decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, in which the majority held there was an individual right to possess firearms for self-defense but recognized a historical tradition of prohibiting “dangerous and unusual weapons.” 

In their complaint, the NRA said that Glock and Glock-style pistols are “among the most popular firearms in the nation,” though if the law is enforced, “ordinary Marylanders will have no way to lawfully acquire these common, constitutionally protected arms.” They noted that pistol converters are already illegal under federal and state law.

“These handguns, like all handguns, are ‘arms’ within the scope of the plain text of the Second Amendment,” the complaint says. “And there is no history of regulation that justifies the ban.”

Adam Kraut, executive director of the Second Amendment Foundation, said the law was “as foolish as banning hops and barley to prevent drunk driving.”

“Instead of going after criminals and enforcing existing laws, (Moore) has chosen to disarm law-abiding Marylanders and strip them of their constitutional rights,” John Commerford, executive director of the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action, said in a statement.

The lawsuit in U.S. District Court for Maryland seeks for a judge to find the law unconstitutional and block its enforcement. The gun rights groups are represented by attorneys from Washington, D.C.-based litigation boutique Cooper & Kirk, PLLC.

This story has been updated. Government reporter Hannah Gaskill contributed to this article.