Maryland Attorney General Antony G. Brown and Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott filed a lawsuit against gun manufacturer Glock, Inc. on Wednesday to hold the company accountable for selling semi-automatic handguns that can be converted into illegal machine guns using a “Glock Switch.”
The lawsuit also alleges that Glock manufactures handguns most frequently recovered in connection with crimes on the streets of Baltimore and across the state of Maryland.
“We will not allow the gun industry to turn a blind eye to grieving families and pursue profit over people’s lives. This case shows that our Office will hold members of the firearms industry accountable for their role in the gun violence epidemic,” Brown said. “It is unacceptable for companies to distribute and market a product that they know can easily be modified to inflict terror on communities across Maryland.”
Brown and Scott allege in the lawsuit that Glock endangers and harms public health and safety in Maryland by manufacturing and selling semi-automatic pistols to Maryland civilians, which can easily be converted into machine guns with an auto sear, which is a cheap, small device most commonly known as a “Glock Switch.”
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In a press release, Brown’s office said even though machine guns have been heavily regulated and restricted under Maryland and federal law for nearly 100 years due to their “extreme dangerousness,” the lawsuit filed on Wednesday alleges Glock’s continued sale of pistols that are easy to convert into fully-automatic weapons, and the company’s refusal to fix the issues, makes it possible for criminals to arm themselves with fully automatic firepower.
Brown’s office also said an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) said the use of guns equipped with auto sears is “one of the scariest things” the agency has dealt with in decades. “Once installed, Glock switches allow pistols to fire up to 1,200 rounds per minute – a rate as fast as, or faster than, many fully automatic firearms and machine guns used by the United States military,” the AG’s office said.
Filed in the Circuit Court of Maryland in Baltimore City, the lawsuit is the first to use Maryland’s new Gun Industry Accountability Act, which was signed into law in 2024.
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The law prohibits firearm industry members from knowingly contributing to any harm to the public through the sales, manufacturing, distribution or marketing of firearm-related products.
Glock did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment on the matter.
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Still, the lawsuit claims that between 2023 and 2024, at least 100 illegally modified Glock pistols were recovered from crime scenes and in connection with criminal investigations by the City of Baltimore Police Department.
The plaintiffs are seeking an order preventing Glock from continuing to sell the “easily modifiable” pistols to civilians in Maryland, as well as relief in the form of restitution and abatement.
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“Confronting the epidemic of gun violence in our communities means holding everyone responsible, from those pulling the trigger to those making it easier to access — and modify — weapons,” Scott said. “As we continue to achieve historic reductions of homicides and nonfatal shootings in Baltimore, we must continue to redouble our efforts to drive violence down even more.”
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