NRA Sues California Over Ban on Popular Glock Pistols

California’s war on the Second Amendment just hit a new low.

On Friday, Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom signed a first-of-its-kind law banning the sale and transfer of Glock and Glock-style pistols one of the most popular and widely used handguns in the country. Just three days later, the National Rifle Association (NRA) filed a lawsuit to stop it, calling the law a direct assault on constitutional rights.

“Our message to Governor Newsom is simple: we will see you in court,” said NRA-ILA Executive Director John Commerford. “This flagrant violation of rights cannot, and will not, go unchecked.”

The new law, which takes effect January 1, prohibits any semiautomatic pistol that features a “cruciform trigger bar” a design component found in nearly all Glock handguns and many similar models. The law defines these pistols as “readily convertible” to machine guns, even though modifying a gun to fire automatically is already a federal crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

Translation: California is banning these guns not for what they are but for what criminals might illegally turn them into. It's guilt by design.

• Glocks are among the most commonly owned handguns in America, trusted by millions of law-abiding citizens, law enforcement officers, and military personnel.

• The law effectively bans the vast majority of Glock models, despite no evidence that lawful Glock owners are involved in illegal modifications.

• This is a direct challenge to the 2008 Supreme Court ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller, which confirmed that Americans have a right to own handguns for self-defense.

The NRA’s lawsuit, filed Monday against California Attorney General Rob Bonta, is joined by the Firearms Policy Coalition, the Second Amendment Foundation, and two NRA members directly impacted by the ban. The plaintiffs argue that Newsom’s law criminalizes common firearm ownership and violates clear precedent.

“The Supreme Court has opined that you cannot wholesale ban handguns, and that’s exactly what Governor Gavin Newsom just did.”

This has nothing to do with safety. Federal law already prohibits converting a semi-auto firearm into a machine gun. What Newsom and his allies have done is ban the tool itself punishing legal gun owners based on the potential actions of criminals.

And the timing is no coincidence. As California continues to spiral into crime and chaos, Democrats are doubling down on disarming the citizens they failed to protect. While smash-and-grab robberies, carjackings, and violent crime plague the state’s cities, Sacramento’s solution is to take away firearms from law-abiding Californians.

This is the same Gavin Newsom who:

• Bragged about signing more than 20 gun control laws in his first term.

• Publicly fantasized about rewriting the Second Amendment itself.

• Sent his administration to sue gun manufacturers for crimes committed by others.

Now, he's decided the most popular handgun in America is just too dangerous for Californians to own while his taxpayer-funded security detail stays fully armed.

The Supreme Court has already spoken on this issue. And if Newsom thinks he can outmaneuver the Constitution, he may soon find out otherwise.

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