Blue State’s Glock Ban Just Got Smothered With Legal Filings

Pro-Second Amendment organizations filed suit Thursday to block New York’s ban on Glock pistols, saying it violated the right to keep and bear arms.

Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the ban into law as part of the state’s budget in May, becoming the fourth state to ban the popular pistols over illegal conversions to full-auto firing. The National Rifle Association (NRA), Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and the Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced the effort, saying the measure was barred by the Supreme Court’s 2008 Heller decision.

“Glock and Glock-style pistols, themselves, are not relevantly different from any other ordinary semiautomatic handgun. That is true even though they may be illegally modified,” the complaint filed by the pro-Second Amendment groups said. “What is more, these pistols are in common use; indeed, they are among the most popular firearms in the nation. Yet if the Act is enforced, ordinary New Yorkers will be relegated to a shrinking secondary market made up of only those pistols possessed before the law’s effective date.”

“That is a handgun ban. The fact that the ban targets only one category of popular handguns does not make it constitutional,” the complaint continued.

The Supreme Court invalidated Washington, D.C.’s handgun ban after ruling that the Second Amendment protected an individual right to keep and bear arms in the Heller vs. District of Columbia decision, saying the Second Amendment protects arms that are “in common use.”