NRA, Firearms Advocates Sue Maryland Over State’s Glock Ban (2)

The National Rifle Association, Firearms Policy Coalition Inc., and Second Amendment Foundation sued Maryland’s governor, attorney general, and the state police’s acting superintendent to block implementation of the state’s new ban on “Glock-style” pistols.

The lawsuit, which challenges the ban on Second and Fourteenth Amendment grounds, landed just hours after Gov. Wes Moore (D) approved the legislation Tuesday. It claims the new law amounts to a ban on handguns.

“The fact that the ban targets only one category of popular handguns does not make it constitutional,” the complaint, filed in the US District Court for the District of Maryland, says.

The law, set to take effect Jan. 1, 2027, prohibits people from manufacturing, selling, buying, or transferring a “machine gun convertible pistol.” The term includes any semiautomatic firearm with a cruciform trigger bar “that can be readily converted by hand or by using a common household tool” into a machine gun.

All stock models of Glock pistols have a cruciform trigger bar, according to the complaint, a feature that’s “integral to Glock’s design.”

“Among other things, it ensures that a Glock pistol will not discharge accidentally if dropped,” according to the lawsuit.

The plaintiffs say the law appears to have been enacted out of a concern that Glocks and Glock-style pistols can can be equipped with pistol converters that enable them to function like machine guns. But those converters are already banned, and Glocks aren’t “relevantly different from any ordinary semiautomatic handgun,” according to the complaint.

“This is true even though they may be illegally modified,” it says.

Moore signed the bill because Marylanders shouldn’t “have to live in fear of weapons that can be quickly and illegally converted into machine guns,” Ammar Moussa, Moore’s press secretary, said in an email.

“This law is focused on public safety and gives Maryland State Police a clear process to identify firearms that can be readily converted into fully automatic weapons, while maintaining commonsense exceptions for law enforcement and other lawful uses,” Moussa said. “The Governor will always defend Maryland’s right to pass laws that keep our communities safe.”

The lawsuit cites District of Columbia v. Heller, a 2008 US Supreme Court invalidating a local handgun ban on the grounds that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to posses firearms in common use for lawful purposes.

The organizations also challenged California’s similar ban on Glock-style handguns last year before agreeing to drop the suit in April 2026.

State Attorney General Anthony Brown’s office declined to comment. A representative for Maryland State Police acting Superintendent Michael A. Jackson said the department couldn’t comment on pending litigation .

Glock Inc. has been accused by multiple states and municipalities of knowingly designing firearms that can be easily converted to machine guns. Related litigation against the manufacturer is ongoing.

The case is Natn’t Rifle Ass’n. v. Moore, D. Md., No. 1:26-cv-02074, 5/26/26.