By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
Plaintiffs in a federal court challenge of Maryland’s law banning Glock pistols have filed a motion for preliminary injunction in U.SD. District Court for the District of Maryland.
The motion was filed by attorneys representing the Second Amendment Foundation, National Rifle Association, Firearms Policy Coalition, Atlantic Guns and two private citizens. Their lawsuit was filed in May immediately after Democrat Gov. Wes Moore signed Senate Bill 334, which takes effect Jan. 1, 2027. The law bans the sale, purchase or transfer of semiautomatic handguns with a cruciform trigger bar, essentially banning Glock and “Glock-style” handguns. The case is known as Bathras v. Moore.
As noted in a SAF news release announcing this latest move, the challenged statute “defines a “machine gun convertible pistol” as a firearm that contains a cruciform trigger bar. Cruciform trigger bars are a unique design element found across all Glock handguns. The intent of the bill is to prevent the already illegal conversion of semi-automatic handguns into machineguns, by banning the legal handguns themselves.”
The illegal conversions have given anti-gunners an excuse to ban popular semi-auto pistols also in California under provisions in Assembly Bill 1127. The Justice Department sued California over the ban on July 1.
“The Civil Rights Division will defend law-abiding citizens from states that seek to disarm them illegally,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “This lawsuit is yet another example of this Justice Department enforcing the Second Amendment by protecting citizens against unconstitutional state regulation of firearms.”
In Maryland, SAF, NRA and FPC essentially beat DOJ to the punch.
“Anti-gun politicians will constantly tell you that ‘no one is coming for your guns,’” said SAF Senior Director of Legal Operations Bill Sack. “And then they pass bills like this that bans the most commonly owned handgun in America. Both can’t be true.
“Maryland’s Glock ban,” Sack continued, “and those like it that have popped up around the country, are a thinly veiled attempt to ban all guns, one chunk of the market at a time. But the law is overwhelmingly on our side. The Supreme Court has already held that the Second Amendment protects handguns, as they are the ‘quintessential’ firearm of choice for self-defense, and Glock-style pistols are massively popular and commonly used in Maryland and around the country.”
Tuesday’s 25-page motion for a preliminary injunction notes about Glock pistols, “As handguns, these arms are clearly protected by the Second Amendment as articulated in Heller, and SB 334 is flatly unconstitutional under settled law. But even if they are treated as a discrete subset of handguns, which they should not be, the pistols banned by Maryland are still in common use; indeed, they are among the most popular firearms in the nation.”
“Laws like this strip peaceable Americans from access to constitutionally protected arms and seek to bully and hold liable lawful manufacturers and sellers for the criminal misuse of firearms,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb. “This law is the equivalent to banning free speech in the hopes of preventing fraud. It’s bad policy and unconstitutional. We look forward getting it tossed.”
