{"id":117083,"date":"2026-05-30T21:55:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T02:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=117083"},"modified":"2026-05-30T21:56:32","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T02:56:32","slug":"117083","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=117083","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

The Push by Democrats to Ban One of the Commonly Owned Handguns in the US<\/a><\/p>\n

Gun control advocates are trying a new tactic. Instead of trying to ban all handguns, some Democrat states are trying to ban one of the most commonly owned handguns \u2013 Glocks, which they claim can be easily converted into machine guns.<\/p>\n

This week, Maryland\u2019s Democrat Governor Wes Moore and\u00a0Connecticut’s Democrat Governor Ned Lamont<\/a>\u00a0joined<\/a>\u00a0California<\/a>\u00a0by signing into law a ban on the manufacture, sale, purchase, and transfer of guns with a cruciform trigger bar. A cruciform trigger bar is a vital internal component of semi-automatic pistols\u2014most notably Glock and Glock-style firearms. Named after its cross-like shape, it connects the trigger to the firing mechanism and plays a crucial role in the firearm’s safety and discharge sequence.<\/p>\n

Legislatures in\u00a0Illinois and New York<\/a>\u00a0are among the states\u00a0actively considering bills<\/a>\u00a0to ban these firearms.<\/p>\n

Lawsuits by the\u00a0NRA<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0Second Amendment Foundation<\/a>\u00a0were immediately filed against\u00a0Maryland\u2019s new law<\/a>. In landmark rulings starting with the\u00a0District of Columbia v. Heller<\/em><\/a>, the U.S. Supreme Court established that the Second Amendment protects “bearable arms” that are typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes. The Court specifically contrasted these with “dangerous and unusual” weapons, stating that outright bans on common-use firearms (such as handguns) are unconstitutional.<\/p>\n

New Jersey is now in a discovery process to subpoena Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs) across the state for records involving\u00a0Glock pistol sales to New Jersey residents<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Under a\u00a01986 federal law<\/a>, it is already illegal for ordinary civilians to manufacture or convert a firearm into a machine gun.\u00a0Twenty-six states<\/a> have similar laws. There is no evidence that law- abiding gun owners are converting their handguns, and even the advocates for these laws focus<\/a>\u00a0on only the threat from criminal gangs. Indeed, all\u00a043 murders<\/a>\u00a0in the 20 U.S. attacks involving \u201cGlock switches\u201d that the Crime Prevention Research Center\u2014which I head\u2014has identified since the beginning of 2021 occurred during gang fights.<\/p>\n

Over\u00a065 percent<\/a>\u00a0of police departments in the U.S. issue or authorize Glock handguns for officers. In 2025, Glock\u00a0had three of the six<\/a>\u00a0most popular semi-automatic handguns sold in the United States, with Sig having two of the top six.<\/p>\n

These states argue that Glock knowingly designed and marketed pistols that criminals can easily convert into illegal machine guns using so-called \u201cGlock switches.\u201d They contend that Glock has known about the problem for years, ignored repeated warnings from law enforcement, and still refused to redesign its pistols to make those conversions more difficult.<\/p>\n

Glock\u00a0rejects<\/a>\u00a0the claim that its pistols are uniquely or unusually easy to convert. The company argues that its semiautomatic operating system does not differ fundamentally from those used in many other modern semiautomatic pistols. Glock pistols use a fairly conventional short- recoil, locked-breech design common throughout the handgun industry. Glock also maintains that criminals\u2014not the manufacturer\u2014bear responsibility for illegally modifying firearms with already-prohibited conversion devices.<\/p>\n

Moreover, a Glock switch creates a firing mechanism\u00a0fundamentally different<\/a>\u00a0from that of a true, fully automatic machine gun. A military-style machine gun uses an integrated fire-control system specifically engineered for automatic fire. By contrast, a Glock switch\u00a0disrupts<\/a>\u00a0the pistol\u2019s existing trigger-bar and reset mechanism. The device forces the trigger bar out of engagement and causes the pistol\u2019s short-recoil action to cycle uncontrollably. Once the trigger is pulled, the firing continues until the gun exhausts its ammunition.<\/p>\n

That crude method creates serious\u00a0reliability and safety problems<\/a>. Because the switch bypasses the pistol\u2019s normal timing and reset functions, the firearm can discharge before the slide and chamber fully close and lock. As a result, the modification creates a real risk of catastrophic malfunction, including damage to the firearm and potentially serious injury to the shooter.<\/p>\n

Common damage includes a destroyed or blown-open magazine, cracked or split receiver or upper, damaged or missing bolt, firing pin, extractor, ejector, operating springs, and stock.<\/p>\n

Flying\u00a0brass shards or case fragments<\/a>\u00a0can slice skin (hands, arms, face, cheek) or embed in tissue. Real incidents include a shooter\u2019s thumb being sliced open \u201clike a box cutter\u201d with powder burns, or brass embedding in a shoulder, causing bleeding. Fragments can strike the face or eyes.<\/p>\n

But others besides the shooter can also be harmed. \u201cThe problem about that is when you pull the trigger, you can\u2019t stop it, the gun, the bullets are going to go and what we\u2019re seeing is young people and adults can\u2019t control their gun. \u2026 \u201d\u00a0warned<\/a>\u00a0Richland County, South Carolina Sheriff Leon Lott. \u201cYou may hit a lot of innocent people, you may even hit people that\u2019s on your team because you can\u2019t control that gun.\u201d<\/p>\n

These laws don\u2019t target criminals who are already breaking federal and state laws by illegally owning and using guns, let alone using illegal conversion devices; the laws are targeting millions of law-abiding Americans who own one of the country\u2019s most common handguns. If courts allow states to ban Glocks because criminals can illegally modify them, no semiautomatic firearm will be safe from the same argument. The real solution is to\u00a0prosecute the gangs and criminals<\/a>\u00a0using Glock switches\u2014not to outlaw firearms that police and citizens have relied on safely for decades.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Push by Democrats to Ban One of the Commonly Owned Handguns in the US Gun control advocates are trying a new tactic. Instead of trying to ban all handguns, some Democrat states are trying to ban one of the most commonly owned handguns \u2013 Glocks, which they claim can be easily converted into machine … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,36,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-goobermint","category-gun-schtuff","category-rkba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=117083"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117083\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":117086,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117083\/revisions\/117086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=117083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=117083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=117083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}