State of Minnesota v. Glock, Inc. and Glock Ges.m.b.H.
Holding firearm manufacturers accountable for enabling the spread of dangerous devices known as “Glock switches” that convert legal handguns into illegal machine guns.
Glock switches are showing up on the streets of Minnesota and in cities across the country. We’re suing Glock for encouraging this.
GIFFORDS Law Center, alongside Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and the Minnesota Law Gun Violence Prevention Clinic, represents the State of Minnesota in a lawsuit against American gun manufacturer Glock, Inc., and its foreign parent company, Glock, Ges. m.b.H., for their role in the proliferation of dangerous Glock switches, also known as auto sears, that allow any person to easily convert a semiautomatic handgun into an illegal fully automatic weapon.
These conversion devices are frequently called “Glock switches” because of their pervasive use on Glock pistols. Glock semiautomatic handguns have a distinct design that makes them uniquely easy to convert to fully automatic machine guns with a Glock switch. Glock has made no effort to address this issue and even encourages conversion of its handguns by promoting Glock’s fully automatic machine guns as “fun” and “exciting.”
Glock switches are designed to be easy to install. The device prevents a firearm’s trigger bar from reengaging after a single shot, allowing any firearm equipped with a switch to fire continuously with a single trigger pull, thereby creating a machine gun.
In just seconds, and for as little as $10, an amateur can use a Glock switch no bigger than the size of a LEGO to transform a semiautomatic handgun into an illegal fully automatic weapon.
Illustration of a semiautomatic Glock handgun equipped with a switch before the trigger pull (left); following the trigger pull, as the striker and slide move backward with recoil (middle); and as the next bullet fires as the Glock switch holds down the trigger bar (right).
Although machine guns remain generally outlawed under Minnesota and federal law, Glock switches have flooded the streets of Minnesota, as well as many other US cities, resulting in an increase in gun violence involving deadly fully automatic machine guns.
Between 2017 and 2021, the ATF reported a 570% increase in the recovery of Glock switches and other conversion devices compared to the previous five years. In 2023, the Minneapolis Police Department recovered three times as many Glock switches than in 2021, the first year it began tracking these devices. As a result, incidents of machine gun fire in Minneapolis surged significantly from 2020 to 2022, even as the number of firearm shootings declined.
Glock’s design, manufacture, and sale of semiautomatic handguns that are easily converted into illegal machine guns, coupled with Glock’s refusal to fix this known hazard actively harms civilians, puts communities at greater risk of gun violence, and violates Minnesota law.
Our complaint alleges that Glock knowingly and intentionally makes and sells semiautomatic handguns that can be easily converted into illegal fully automatic weapons with Glock switches, and, further, that Glock has refused to modify its handgun design to prevent the use of these dangerous switches.
Not only has Glock failed to act in order to deter civilians from easily modifying their guns into fully automatic machine guns, but we also allege that Glock has actively promoted and encouraged the conversion of their handguns on their very own website and social media pages—misleading consumers on the legality of modifying their handguns to fully automatic fire and putting lives at risk.
Our complaint features the stories of several innocent Minnesotans who were injured or killed by semiautomatic Glock handguns equipped with Glock switches. On May 22, 2021, a college senior named CJ was killed the night before his graduation outside the Monarch nightclub in Minneapolis during a confrontation between two people carrying Glock handguns modified with a Glock switch, resulting in a spray of bullets that hit CJ and seven other bystanders as they attempted to flee. And on August 11, 2023, a Minneapolis police officer was shot by a .40 caliber Glock handgun equipped with a Glock switch and an extended magazine while investigating a robbery.
A Glock social media post promoting converting their handguns to fully automatic weapons.
On behalf of the people and state of Minnesota, the Minnesota Attorney General is seeking compensation to remedy the harms Minnesotans have suffered as a direct result of Glock, Inc., and Glock Ges.m.b.H.’s deceptive and unlawful conduct, as well as injunctive relief, including requiring Glock to modify the design of its semiautomatic handguns in a manner that prevents them from being easily converted into fully automatic machine guns.
GIFFORDS Law Center is bringing this suit alongside Attorney General Ellison to put an end to Glock’s illegal and harmful conduct and keep Minnesota communities safe from the scourge of illegal machine guns.
The case was filed on December 12, 2024, in the Hennepin County District Court and named as defendants American gun manufacturer, Glock, Inc., and its Austrian parent company, Glock Ges.m.b.H.
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