Original Article | thefirearmblog.com
As Chicago continues to rack up L’s in its battle against crime, the city has decided on a new target. No, they are not announcing an anti-gang strike force or improving the courts and correctional system to keep criminals off the streets. Instead, the city is suing firearms manufacturer Glock.
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The suit is a response to unlawful third-party modification with so-called auto sears. These small parts are bought illegally or self-manufactured via 3D printing, then swapped into a firearm in place of the factory-designed parts. When installed, they convert a semi-auto firearm to select-fire, with choice of semi-auto or full-auto firing capability.
In the U.S., full-auto firearms are highly regulated and ownership requires a background check, paperwork and fees. Obviously, criminals aren’t doing all that, and illegal full-auto conversions of semi-auto designs are commonly used by criminals. Chicago’s law enforcement officers say they’ve confiscated more than 1,100 modified Glock pistols since 2021. However, take note that despite being singled out by Chicago, Glocks are not the only semi-autos that are converted in this fashion.
A Forbes reporter has uploaded lawsuit documents to the web; you can read the full paperwork here., The gist of it is this: the city’s lawyers claim Glock has “created, maintained, and contributed to a public nuisance in Chicago.” The city alleges Glock knows its firearms are easily convertible to full auto, but that could change with a design modification—but they say the manufacturer doesn’t do anything about it.
The legal paperwork then goes on to say other manufacturers’ pistols are more difficult to convert them to full-auto, and says Glock should do the same. Again, these are all allegations in a civil suit, with nothing tested in court.
So far, we have seen no comment from Glock on the lawsuit.
WHAT DOES CHICAGO WANT?
The city wants two things from this lawsuit: First, they’re demanding unspecified damages, which probably means as much money as they can get out of the case if they win. Second, the city also wants Glock to stop selling firearms to Chicago residents.
Given the proliferation of smaller manufacturers selling Glock-pattern pistols and parts kits like the one above, not to mention the rise of DIY printing these same patterns, it seems hard to imagine a future where the city would achieve any meaningful impact on the proliferation of Glocks inside its boundaries, even if Chicago won the lawsuit. Criminals certainly aren’t worried about the legality of their firearms sourcing anyway.
As for the first point, though, the unspecified damages? U.S. firearms manufacturers are facing a rise in court battles, and 2022’s Sandy Hook lawsuit settlement saw Remington pay out $73M without losing in court. That’s essentially blood-in-the-water in the legal world, and the sharks are going to start circling other manufacturers more and more in the years to come.
