By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
For a state whose official nickname is the “Constitution State,” Connecticut is having a bad week with federal lawsuits challenging its ban on Glock semiautomatic pistols and similar handguns featuring cruciform trigger designs.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), joined by Shadow Systems LLC and Blue Trail Range Corporation filed one lawsuit Monday in U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut. Almost simultaneously, Glock filed a separate lawsuit in the same court, with many of the same defendants named in both complaints, including Chief State’s Attorney Patrick J. Griffin.
The irony of these legal actions is not lost on Glock, which notes in its 31-page lawsuit, “Glock pistols are particularly favored by law enforcement in Connecticut, where approximately 85% of law enforcement agencies issue Glock pistols to their officers, including (among others) the Connecticut State Police, the Connecticut Division of Criminal Justice, the Danbury Police Department, the Greenwich Police Department, the Hartford Police Department, the New Britain Police Department, the New Haven Police Department, the Norwalk Police Department and the West Hartford Police Department.”
Indeed, according to Glock’s complaint, more than 65 percent of American law enforcement agencies now issue Glock pistols to their commissioned officers.
As noted in the NSSF lawsuit, “Starting October 1, Substitute House Bill No. 5043 (“HB5043”) makes it a felony to sell any of the market-leading cruciform-trigger handguns.”
The NSSF complaint also declares, “Connecticut may ban the parts used to interfere with cruciform-trigger handgun’s intended semiautomatic functioning. (In fact, it already has. See Conn. Gen. Stat. §53 206g.) It may aggressively prosecute both those who do the illicit modifying and those who supply the illicit parts to aid it. And it may mobilize all manner of resources to educate the public about this important public-safety issue. But it cannot drive ‘an entire class of ‘arms’ that is overwhelmingly chosen by American society for [a] lawful purpose’ off the market…Heller was clear: It is not ‘permissible to ban the possession of handguns so long as the possession of other firearms … is allowed.’”
Heartland News recalled how NSSF and other gun rights organizations promised to take legal action if Connecticut’s Democrat Gov. Ned Lamont signed the legislation.
NSSF’s Larry Keane made his opinion clear in a prepared statement released after the organization filed its lawsuit.
“To borrow on a line from James Carville, whom Democrats revere, ‘it’s the criminal, stupid,’” said Keane, NSSF’s senior vice president & General Counsel. “This law, and similar laws passed in other states, punishes law-abiding citizens by infringing on their Second Amendment rights to legally obtain the firearms they choose to protect themselves and their families against criminals who, by definition, have no respect for life or law. Instead of enforcing the law and holding these criminals accountable, Connecticut’s elected officials pander to gun control donors and antigun special interests to scapegoat the industry and ban an entire class of ordinary firearms, which the U.S. Supreme Court’s Heller decision clearly holds violates the U.S. Constitution. Governor Lamont knew this yet didn’t hesitate to trample on the Second Amendment.”
Glock and other pistols with similar triggers are not responsible for the illegal alteration of their handguns by third parties, essentially allowing the guns to be fired fully-automatically.
The state’s ban on modern semiautomatic rifles will be argued before the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday, Dec. 2 by attorneys representing the Second Amendment Foundation and its partners. A decision is not expected until sometime in June 2027.
Expect all of these actions to be discussed during this weekend’s 41st annua Gun Rights Policy Conference, which begins today in Dallas, Texas. Co-hosted by the Second Amendment Foundation and Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, the GRPC will feature discussions involving key leaders in the gun rights movement, along with appearances by Robert Cekada, head of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and retired federal District Judge Roger T. Benitez.
To watch the conference livestreamed here are the links:
