People of the State of California v. Blackhawk Manufacturing Group, Inc., et al.
Holding ghost gun companies accountable for selling and marketing products designed to evade gun laws and create untraceable weapons.
Ghost guns are fueling crime. We took the companies responsible to court.
On June 4, 2024, the Superior Court of San Francisco County issued final judgments as part of a settlement agreement with the companies, effectively enjoining the defendants from making or selling ghost gun parts kits in California and ordering civil penalties of $675,000 to be paid to the state in the following amounts: $500,000 from Blackhawk, $120,000 from Glockstore, and $55,000 from MDX.
GIFFORDS Law Center, alongside California Attorney General Rob Bonta, San Francisco City and County, and Keker, Van Nest, & Peters LLP, represented the people of California in a lawsuit against major ghost gun companies, Blackhawk Manufacturing Group, Inc. (Blackhawk), GS Performance, LLC (Glockstore), and MDX Corporation (MDX), for selling illegal gun-making kits that contributed to the proliferation of dangerous ghost guns.
Ghost guns, also known as privately made firearms, are unserialized and untraceable firearms that allow any person to sidestep state and federal gun laws by manufacturing firearms in their own home without undergoing a background check or other protections. This allows individuals who are legally prohibited from owning firearms—due to criminal convictions, restraining orders, or age restrictions—to obtain them with ease. It also means that the firearms they obtain do not have a serial number—a vital tool for law enforcement agencies like the ATF, which use them to trace guns recovered at crime scenes. Tracing allows investigators to determine where the firearm was originally sold and to whom, thereby enabling them to solve crimes, uncover firearm trafficking, and prevent future gun violence.
The defendants in this case—Blackhawk, Glockstore, and MDX—made, sold, and marketed build kits specifically designed to enable users to easily assemble a deadly, unserialized firearm using common household tools.
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The gun build kits sold by defendants allowed anyone—including someone who cannot lawfully purchase a firearm—to make and assemble an unlimited arsenal of ghost guns capable of eluding law enforcement tracing at crime scenes.
By the time this lawsuit was filed, many communities had seen an explosion in the unregulated and untracked sale of “DIY” ghost gun kits and related products—and, predictably, a parallel surge in the number of these weapons showing up at crime scenes. Between 2017 and 2023, the ATF reported a staggering 1,600% increase in the number of ghost guns recovered by law enforcement nationwide. That translated to 92,702 privately made, untraceable firearms, all assembled without background checks or licenses and increasingly used to commit violent crimes.
The concerning rise in the use of ghost guns to commit crimes led states like California to enact laws designed to keep their communities safe from the threat of the untraceable weapons. But unscrupulous companies, including the defendants in this case, continued to flood the state with dangerous, illegal ghost guns anyways.
One company named in the lawsuit, Glockstore, had sold more than 26,000 ghost gun parts and kits to consumers in California by the time this lawsuit was filed. That’s enough to build over 12,000 fully functioning semiautomatic handguns.
Our complaint alleged that Blackhawk, Glockstore, and MDX knowingly and deliberately violated state and federal law by selling firearm parts and kits into California that were designed to produce unserialized ghost guns. We also alleged that the companies engaged in fraudulent business practices and false advertising that misled California consumers about the legality of purchasing and possessing their gun build kits.
The federal Gun Control Act (GCA) prohibits the sale of unserialized firearms and requires all commercial firearm sales to go through a federally licensed dealer, who must conduct background checks to ensure a purchaser is legally eligible to own a firearm. The defendants tried to exploit a purported loophole in federal law by selling partially assembled ghost gun kits that they claimed did not qualify as firearms and therefore were not subject to serialization or background check requirements. In reality, the almost-but-not-quite-completed frames and receivers they sold—the core components of a firearm—could be “finished” at home by the consumer in less than 15 minutes with common tools and minimal effort. And because the companies marketed and sold all the necessary components to complete a firearm alongside the frames and receivers in their build kits, their products met the GCA’s definition of a firearm and were illegal to sell under federal law.
Side-by-side images of a pistol frame sold in a ghost gun kit (left) and that of a finished pistol frame (right), as included in our complaint. As these diagrams show, the difference is minimal: the finished frame simply has three holes drilled into it and the rails filed off—a process that takes all of 5 minutes. The ease with which these partially completed firearms can be finished by any consumer demonstrates that ghost guns are simply schemes to sell a handgun that can evade federal laws by requiring virtually one more step to make it into a fully functioning firearm.
The defendants also violated California state laws that were specifically crafted and enacted to curb the proliferation of ghost guns.
The California Assembly of Firearms Law requires a background check and sales records for all sales of firearm parts kits and mandates that anyone who builds a firearm apply to the California Department of Justice to receive a serial number for the weapon.
Yet the companies in this lawsuit misled consumers into believing the frame and receiver blanks they were selling in their kits, which failed to satisfy these requirements, were “100% Legal!” This reckless, false, and misleading advertising put Californians at risk of being held criminally responsible for violating California’s gun laws and flooded the state with unserialized ghost guns.
California’s Unsafe Handguns Act requires all handguns sold within the state to be tested to meet safety standards that reduce the risk of accidental gun deaths. This includes a firing test to ensure the handgun can be fired multiple times without malfunctioning and a drop test to ensure the handgun will not accidentally discharge if dropped. None of the defendants complied with these requirements, nor did they inform consumers that possessing an assembled handgun from their kits would place them in violation of the state law. The ghost gun companies were essentially flooding the state with dangerous, untested handguns while trying to shift the blame—and criminal liability—to their California customers.
The build kits sold by Blackhawk, Glockstore, and MDX were created and marketed with one goal: to give these companies a way to sidestep California’s vital gun safety laws—all in pursuit of profit.
Law enforcement officials in major cities, including Los Angeles, Oakland, San Diego, and San Francisco, reported that ghost guns accounted for 25% to 50% of firearms recovered at crime scenes in 2020 and 2021. And these alarming numbers likely understated the problem, since many law enforcement agencies lack the proper tools or protocols to trace or record ghost gun recoveries.
That’s why GIFFORDS Law Center, alongside the San Francisco District Attorney and the California Attorney General, took legal action on behalf of the people of California. We held Blackhawk, Glockstore, and MDX accountable, stopped their illegal conduct, and protected California communities from the ongoing threat of ghost guns.
The case was filed on August 18, 2021, in the Superior Court of San Diego County, naming Blackhawk Manufacturing Group, Inc., GS Performance, LLC, and MDX Corporation as defendants.
On June 4, 2024, the Superior Court of San Diego County issued final judgments as part of a settlement agreement with the companies, effectively enjoining the defendants from making or selling ghost gun parts kits in California. The court ordered civil penalties of $675,000 to be paid to the State of California in the following amounts: $500,000 from Blackhawk, $120,000 from Glockstore, and $55,000 from MDX.
People of the State of California v. Blackhawk Manufacturing Group, Inc., et al.
Cal. Super. Ct., San Francisco Co. (Case No. CGC-21-594577)
| Date Filed | Key Filing |
|---|---|
| 8/18/2021 | |
| 10/13/2021 | |
| 11/29/2021 | Plaintiff’s Opposition to Defendants’ Request for Complex Designation and Stay We filed a brief opposing the ghost gun companies’ request that the court designate the case as complex and stay the case. |
| 12/2/2021 | Defendants’ Reply in Support of Request for Complex Designation and Stay The ghost gun companies’ filed a brief further supporting their request to the court to stay the case and designate it as complex. |
| 12/10/2021 | Court Order Granting Complex Designation and Denying Stay The court granted defendants’ request to designate the case as complex, but denied their request for a stay. |
| 1/20/2022 | Defendants’ Demurrer to First Amended Complaint The ghost gun companies filed a motion to dismiss the case. |
| 2/16/2022 | Plaintiff’s Response in Opposition to Defendants’ Demurrer We filed a brief opposing the ghost gun companies’ request to dismiss the case. |
| 3/2/2022 | Defendants’ Reply in Support of Demurrer The ghost gun companies filed a reply brief further supporting their motion to dismiss the case. |
| 3/21/2022 | Defendants’ First Supplemental Brief in Support of Demurrer In response to the court’s request for supplemental briefing, the ghost gun companies filed an additional brief to support their motion to dismiss the case. |
| 3/30/2022 | Plaintiff’s Response to Defendants’ Supplemental Briefing on Defendants’ Demurrer We filed a reply brief further opposing the ghost gun companies’ request to dismiss the case. |
| 5/3/2022 | Defendants’ Second Supplemental Brief in Support of Demurrer The ghost gun companies filed an additional brief to support their motion to dismiss the case. |
| 5/3/2022 | Plaintiff’s Supplemental Brief in Support of Opposition to Defendants’ Demurrer We filed a brief further opposing the ghost gun companies’ motion to dismiss the case. |
| 5/20/2022 | Plaintiff’s Motion for Preliminary Injunction We filed a motion asking the court to preliminarily enjoin the defendants from manufacturing, selling, or marketing their products in California for the duration of the case. |
| 6/3/2022 | Court Order Denying Defendants’ Demurrer and Motion to Strike Plaintiff’s First Amended Complaint The court denied the ghost gun companies’ motion to dismiss the case and strike our amended complaint. |
| 6/13/2022 | Defendants’ Answer to First Amended Complaint The ghost gun companies filed a response raising defenses to the claims in our amended complaint. |
| 6/15/2022 | Defendants’ Opposition to Plaintiff’s Motion for Preliminary Injunction The ghost gun companies filed a brief opposing our motion to preliminarily enjoin them from manufacturing, selling, or marketing their products in California for the duration of the case. |
| 6/27/2022 | Plaintiff’s Reply in Support of Motion for Preliminary Injunction We filed a reply brief further supporting our motion for the court to preliminarily enjoin the defendants from manufacturing, selling, or marketing their products in California for the duration of the case. |
| 7/25/2022 | Defendants’ Motion for Bifurcation The ghost gun companies filed a motion to split the case into separate parts, asking the court to consider two questions of law separately: first, resolving liability claims and, second, resolving claims of statutory damage. |
| 8/5/2022 | Plaintiff’s Opposition to Defendants’ Motion for Bifurcation We filed a reply brief opposing the ghost gun companies’ motion to split the case by issues of law. |
| 8/11/2022 | Defendants’ Reply in Support of Motion for Bifurcation The ghost gun companies filed a brief further supporting their motion to split the case by issues of law. |
| 8/26/2022 | Defendants’ Supplemental Brief in Further Opposition to Plaintiff’s Motion for Preliminary Injunction The ghost gun companies filed a reply brief further opposing our motion for preliminary injunction. |
| 8/31/2022 | Court Order Denying Defendants’ Motion for Bifurcation The court denied the ghost gun companies’ motion to split the case by issues of liability and penalties. |
| 8/31/2022 | Court Order Denying Plaintiff’s Motion for Preliminary Injunction The court denied our motion to preliminarily enjoin defendants from manufacturing, selling, and marketing their products in the state of California for the duration of the case. |
| 1/3/2023 | Defendants’ Amended Answer to First Amended Complaint The ghost gun companies filed an amended response to our amended complaint. |
| 1/3/2023 | Defendants’ Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings The ghost gun companies filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings, asking the court to resolve the case in their favor. |
| 1/26/2023 | Plaintiff’s Opposition to Defendants’ Motion for Judgment on Pleadings We filed a brief opposing the ghost gun companies’ motion to have the court resolve the case in their favor. |
| 2/1/2023 | Defendants’ Reply in Support of Motion for Judgment on Pleadings The ghost gun companies filed a brief further supporting their motion for judgment on the pleadings, asking the court to resolve the case in their favor. |
| 3/3/2023 | Plaintiff’s Supplemental Brief in Further Opposition to Defendants’ Motion for Judgment on Pleadings We filed a brief further opposing the ghost gun companies’ motion to have the court resolve the case in their favor. |
| 5/2/2023 | Court Order Denying Defendants’ Motion for Judgment on Pleadings The court denied the ghost gun companies’ motion for the court to resolve the case in their favor. |
| 8/11/2023 | Defendants’ Motion for Reconsideration of Order Denying Defendants’ Motion for Judgment on Pleadings The ghost gun companies filed a motion asking the court to reconsider its ruling denying their motion for judgment on the pleadings. |
| 8/24/2023 | Plaintiff’s Opposition to Defendants’ Motion for Reconsideration of Court Order Denying Defendants’ Motion for Judgment on Pleadings We filed a brief opposing the ghost gun companies’ motion asking the court to reconsider its earlier ruling. |
| 8/30/2023 | Defendants’ Reply in Support of Motion for Reconsideration of Court Order Denying Defendants’ Motion for Judgment on Pleadings The ghost gun companies filed a reply brief further supporting their motion to have the court reconsider its earlier ruling. |
| 12/19/2023 | Defendants’ Motion for Order Bifurcating Trial of Legal Issues The ghost gun companies filed a motion to split the case into separate parts by legal issues raised, trying the statutory and damages issues separately. |
| 1/5/2024 | Plaintiff’s Opposition to Defendants’ Motion for Order Bifurcating Trial of Legal Issues We filed a brief in opposition to the ghost gun companies’ motion to split the case into separate parts by legal issues raised. |
| 1/11/2024 | Defendants’ Reply in Support of Motion for Order Bifurcating Trial of Legal Issues The ghost gun companies filed a reply brief further supporting their motion to split the case into separate parts by legal issues raised. |
| 1/24/2024 | Court Order Granting Defendants’ Motion for Order Bifurcating Trial of Legal Issues The court granted the separation of the legal issues in the case for defendant Blackhawk, Inc., but denied separating the legal issues as to the other defendants (Glockstore and MDX). |
| 4/24/2024 | Final Judgment and Injunction of Blackhawk, Inc. The court entered final judgment and injunction of defendant Blackhawk, Inc. per the terms of the settlement agreement reached by the parties. |
| 6/4/2024 | Final Judgment and Injunction Against MDX Corp. and Glockstore The court entered final judgment and injunction of the remaining defendants per the terms of the settlement agreement reached by the parties. |
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