So That’s Why Chicago Dropped Its Lawsuit Against Glock

Earlier today we reported on the city of Chicago’s odd decision to quietly drop its joint lawsuit with Everytown Law against gunmaker Glock, which came with no fanfare or press releases… unlike the announcement of the lawsuit earlier this year.

Shortly after our story was published, the gun control outfit did issue a press release; this one touting its new and expanded lawsuit against the gun maker. I’m not going to give them the traffic by linking directly to the press release, but you can find it at Everytown Law’s website if you want to take a look. Here’s the most pertinent piece of their statement, however:

The City of Chicago, alongside Everytown Law and Motley Rice LLC, announced the expansion of the City’s first-of-its-kind lawsuit against Glock, the manufacturer of the most popular handguns in the United States. Three additional defendants were named in the complaint submitted yesterday in Cook County Circuit Court – Glock Ges.m.b.H, the Austrian Glock entity and part owner of the U.S. Glock subsidiary, and two Chicago-area gun stores on Glock’s roster of preferred dealers, Eagle Sports Range in Oak Forest, Illinois and Midwest Sporting Goods in Lyons, Illinois.

… The City seeks a court order requiring Defendants to cease sales and marketing of easily converted Glock pistols to Chicago civilians and an order requiring Eagle Sports Range to stop marketing Glocks modified with an auto sear at its location and online. The City also seeks penalties for these actions. The City first filed its lawsuit against Glock in March of this year, and Glock removed the case to federal district court. The City is now filing its expanded lawsuit after voluntarily dismissing the federal court action.

In their latest complaint, Chicago and Everytown Law claim that Eagle Sports Range is actually “marketing a Modified Glock to its customers”. Reading further, however, it sounds like the range is merely offering customers the opportunity to rent and shoot full-auto firearms on-site.

From the beginning, a major component of Eagle Sports Range’s business plan has been promoting its “full auto experience,” which allows customers to rent machine guns and fire them at its indoor range (a range which it has allowed convicted felons to use).

As part of its “full auto experience,” Eagle Sports Range markets the use of a Modified Glock at its range. Eagle Sports Range customers can thus “demo” a Modified Glock at the store’s range, purchase a semi-automatic Glock from the store’s inventory, and then easily and illegally modify their new Glock pistol at home with an auto sear purchased off the internet.

I doubt very much that Eagle Sports Range is offering an illegally modified Glock for use at its range, though if the company has a Type VII FFL it could legally modify a pistol to fire full-auto without running afoul of the law. But as even the city of Chicago reluctantly admits, it would be against the law for any customer to modify a Glock of their own to shoot full-auto. In fact, it’s a crime punishable under federal law by up to ten years in prison.

The only traces of Eagle Sports Range’s “full auto experience” that I’ve been able to find online are a YouTube video from 2017 that’s wracked up a grand total of less than 4,000 views in the seven years it’s been online, and a press release from that same year announcing that the range had a “Glock 18, a Short Barrel M4, AK47, or a 9MM Carbine” available to rent and use at the range itself. The Glock 18 isn’t a “modified Glock”, however. It’s produced as a full-auto pistol; one not available for sale to average consumers.

Chicago and their partners at Everytown Law are trying to stop city residents from being able to purchase some of the most common and popular handguns in the country, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that they’re playing fast and loose with the facts.

I’m looking forward to seeing Glock’s response to the latest iteration of the litigation, as well as what Eagle Sports Range and Midwest Sporting Goods have to say about the legal attacks on their businesses, but keep in mind that this lawsuit could be just the first round of a broader strategy to ban semi-automatic handguns.

As we’ve previously reported, about a dozen blue-state AGs have sent what amounts to a pre-litigation demand letter to Glock, and the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention has reportedly been pressing the ATF to issue a rule classifying Glocks as machine guns as well. The Supreme Court may have nixed a handgun ban as a violation of the Second Amendment, but the gun control lobby is clearly searching for a way to enact a sweeping gun ban regardless of what the Court has to say about it.