The Democrat-led city of Chicago is fighting back against the manufacturer of what guns.
On Wednesday, the city filed a lawsuit against Glock, claiming that the company manufacturers pistols that easily can be modified into weapons that are fully automatic — and illegal.
The city claims that the pistols can be modified by “Glock switches,” which allows semi-automatic weapons to be turned into “machine guns.” City officials said that, since 2021, police officers have confiscated more than 1,100 of these modified Glock weapons at crime scenes throughout Chicago.
In a statement, Democratic Mayor Brandon Johnson said:
“The City of Chicago is encountering a deadly new frontier in the gun violence plaguing our communities because of the increase of fully automatic Glocks on our streets. 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.”
The switch modifications are called auto sears. One of the biggest challenges that police officers are facing is that they are very cheap, only about $20. They are only about the size of a quarter, and easily can be installed with just a screwdriver.
Once installed, the device will increase the fire rate to roughly 1,200 rounds per minute, which is comparable to — and sometimes even higher than — automatic weapons that are illegal.
According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, there has been a 400% increase in recoveries of illegally modified machine guns from 2020 through 2021, and then a 570% increase in auto sears between 2017 through 2021 compared to the previous five years.
In its lawsuit, the city of Chicago claims that Glock is endangering residents of the city since they aren’t taking any action against having their firearm design illegally exploited.
As the suit reads:
“Glock’s willful decision to not take any meaningful action to address this problem in its sales to civilians — despite its awareness — is immoral, unethical, oppressive, unscrupulous and unreasonable.
“Glock has made the business decision to continue profiting from the sales of its easily modifiable guns to the civilian market. The result endangers the health and safety of Chicagoans and increases and exacerbates the injuries and death from gun violence — draining the City’s public health, safety, investigative and judicial resources and causing some City residents to fear using public streets, parks, schools and transportation.”
Media outlet The Hill reported that this lawsuit is the first of its kind.
Chicago is seeking to have the courts demand that Glock stop selling their pistols in the city. Or, if the company wants to continue selling its pistols in Chicago, it would need to change the design so that easy modification of them would be prevented.
In addition, Chicago is seeking monetary damages through the lawsuit that it filed against Glock.
