Delaware Admits Glock Doesn’t Make Illegal Switches — But Sues Them Anyway

Delaware sued Glock Thursday claiming the company failed to take measures to prevent criminals from illegally adding a component that enable the company’s guns to fire in fully-automatic, but conceded the company didn’t make illegal switches.

Several states have targeted the company’s popular semiautomatic pistols, either trying to prohibit future sales of the handgun or suing the company, claiming that it is too easy to convert the ubiquitous guns into fully-automatic firearms. Democratic Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings accused the company of being “neutrals” in efforts to prevent “gun violence” in a Thursday release that ignored the admission in the complaint that the manufacturer of the immensely popular pistols did not manufacture the illicit devices.

“Our communities, and communities across America, are being terrorized by weapons with destructive power never intended or legal for civilian use,” Jennings claimed in a statement in the release. “Glock knew. They could have acted. They chose profit over people.”

Jennings is asking a court to prevent Glock from distributing pistols deemed “easily convertible” to civilians in Delaware, while also paying restitution and damages and “abatement of the public nuisance.”

In the 82-page complaint, Delaware conceded that the devices were not manufactured by Glock and that third parties were responsible for the illegal distribution and production of the so-called “Glock switches,” some of which had the company’s logo on them without the company’s authorization.

“While Glock itself does not produce these deadly items, many Glock switches still bear Glock’s logo,” the state admitted in its suit. “The popular association of the Glock brand with machine gun functionality runs so deep that many third-party auto sears are even sold with a copied Glock logo printed on them.”

Jennings and Glock did not immediately respond to requests for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation. Four states, Connecticut, California, Maryland and New York, have passed bans on the Glock pistol, but a federal judge blocked Connecticut’s law on Second Amendment grounds.

Other states, including Maryland, Minnesota and New Jersey, have also sued Glock over the devices. Under current federal law, it is illegal to possess or manufacture a fully-automatic firearm that is not registered or authorized under the provisions of the National Firearms Act. A conviction for violating the law can lead to up to ten years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Research by the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) showed that murders with illegally-modified Glocks are less frequent than fatal lightning strikes, with only 40 people dying in attacks using the handguns since the start of 2021, while the National Weather Service confirmed 81 deaths from the meteorological event in the same timeframe.