CHICAGO (CN) — The Windy City's legal department filed a nuisance lawsuit against gun manufacturer Glock on Tuesday, under Illinois' newly passed Firearms Industry Responsibility Act.
The city hopes to bar the company from locally marketing or selling semiautomatic pistols that can be converted to fire fully automatic, except to law enforcement. Glock semiautomatic pistols that are converted into full-auto weapons, Chicago argues, are effectively machine guns; weapons that U.S. civilians have been largely banned from owning since 1934.
Machine guns have an almost mythic place in Chicago history. The Thompson submachine gun, also known as the tommy gun, was so widely used by gangsters like Al Capone and John Dillinger in the 1920s and 30s that it earned the epithet "Chicago typewriter." Despite the nearly century-old ban on their ownership, the city claims Glock has facilitated their return to Chicago's streets.
"Unfortunately, the machine gun has returned as a weapon of choice for criminals in Chicago — this time in the form of a Glock pistol, which can be easily modified into a machine gun using a simple, quarter-sized device called an auto sear," Chicago says in its complaint, filed in Cook County. "Glock knows that it takes little effort to convert its pistols into illegal machine guns and that criminals frequently do so."
Glock does not directly sell or manufacture auto sears, also known as "switches," but a simple Google search for "Glock auto sear" produces numerous results for retailers openly selling versions of the device. Some retailers even emblazon the Glock logo on them. Thus far, the city claims, the company has not taken sufficient steps to ensure its pistols are incompatible with these devices, or to prevent them from entering the Chicago-area market.
"Glock... knows it could fix the problem, but has chosen not to, putting profits over public safety and violating the law," the city claims.
Installing an auto sear on a Glock semiautomatic pistol allows a user to shoot continuously by keeping the trigger squeezed, instead of having to pull the trigger every time they want to fire a single round. Though most Glock pistol magazines can only hold between six and 17 rounds — with some extended magazines having space for as many as 33 rounds — the city estimated that a Glock with an auto sear could theoretically fire over 1,200 rounds per minute.
The city argued such modified Glocks have "caused death and destruction throughout Chicago: they have been recovered in connection with homicides, aggravated assaults, batteries, kidnappings, burglaries, home invasions, carjackings, and attempted robberies."
Besides hoping to enjoin Glock from "marketing and selling pistols that can easily be converted to fully automatic to Chicago non-law enforcement consumers via its website and Illinois gun stores that serve the Chicago market," per the complaint, Chicago seeks tens of thousands of dollars from Glock for violations of municipal and state fraud law.
In August 2023, both Chicago and Illinois modified their respective consumer fraud statutes to accommodate the Firearms Industry Responsibility Act, which bars gun manufacturers from "knowingly creat[ing], maintain[ing] or contribut[ing] to a condition in Illinois that endangers the safety or health of the public" and obliges them to implement "reasonable procedures, safeguards, and business practices" to protect public health and safety.
Glock marketing its easily modified semiautomatic pistols violates both those provisions, the city says. It wants Glock to disgorge all profits it has made selling and marketing those guns in Chicago, as well as $10,000 for each distinct violation of the municipal fraud statute — defined as each day Glock continues selling or marketing its pistols to Chicago civilian consumers.
According to Chicago police statistics, violent crime in Chicago as of this March is down nearly across the board compared to this time last year. Shooting incidents and murder in particular are both down 9%. The FBI also reported a nationwide drop in violent crime over the course of 2023, with large cities like Chicago seeing their violent crime rates fall by 11%. The Chicago Police Department has nevertheless reported a total of 347 shooting incidents in 2024 to date, and over 2,400 shooting incidents in 2023.
In a prepared statement, Mayor Brandon Johnson said these shooting incidents were "plaguing" Chicago communities, which Glock's easily modified pistols have helped facilitate.
"Selling firearms that can so easily be converted into automatic weapons makes heinous acts even more deadly, so we are doing everything we can in collaboration with others committed to ending gun violence to hold Glock accountable for putting profits over public safety," Johnson said.
Tuesday's complaint is not the first time Johnson's administration has sued large private companies for their role in facilitating crime in the city. This past August, the city sued Hyundai and Kia for not installing "industry standard, antitheft technologies in many of their cars," in turn enabling a wave of car thefts between 2022 and 2023. That case is still pending in the Circuit Court of Cook County.
Glock has not yet publicly responded to the suit. A Glock spokesperson declined to speak over the phone, and the company has not responded to an email request for comment.
Follow @djbyrnes1
Subscribe to Closing Arguments
Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.
Additional Reads
-
California certifies March 5 primary election results April 12, 2024 -
