Everytown Law Partners with Baltimore and Maryland to Hold Glock Accountable for Harming Marylanders’ Public Health and Safety Through the Manufacture, Sale, and Marketing of Easily Modified Pistols

Baltimore, MD — On February 12, 2025, the City of Baltimore and the State of Maryland, represented by the Baltimore City Law Department, the Maryland Office of the Attorney General, Everytown Law, and Motley Rice LLC, filed a lawsuit against Glock, Inc. and Glock Ges.m.b.H. for facilitating the proliferation of illegal machine guns on the streets of Baltimore and Maryland.

The lawsuit alleges that Glock harms public health and safety in Maryland by manufacturing and selling to Maryland civilians semiautomatic pistols that can easily be converted to illegal machine guns with an auto sear – a cheap, small device commonly known as a “Glock switch.” This illegal conversion allows the pistol to fire at a rate as fast as, or faster than, many U.S. military fully automatic firearms and machine guns. 

According to the lawsuit, Glock has knowingly harmed Marylanders, particularly in Baltimore, by facilitating the proliferation of illegal machine guns and failing to implement reasonable controls to combat the unlawful possession, alteration, and use of its semiautomatic pistols. The suit is the first to use Maryland’s new Gun Industry Accountability Act, passed and signed into law in 2024. 

The lawsuit reports that from 2023 to 2024, at least 100 Glock pistols illegally modified to fire fully automatically were recovered at crime scenes and in connection with criminal investigations by the City of Baltimore Police Department. According to the complaint, the problem is intensifying: recovery of modified Glocks in Baltimore nearly doubled from 2023 to 2024. A particularly shocking aspect of the growing problem in Baltimore is its impact on young people. According to the complaint, approximately half of the individuals arrested by BPD in connection with incidents involving illegally modified Glocks were under the age of 21.

As the Complaint alleges, the design of Glock’s handguns–unlike other popular handguns sold in Maryland–makes them uniquely susceptible to easy modification to allow for automatic fire.  Despite knowing for decades about this danger, and that Glock could take reasonable steps to fix the problem, Glock has made the reprehensible business decision to continue profiting from the sales of its easily modifiable guns to the civilian market. 

Through this lawsuit, Plaintiffs seek an order enjoining Glock from continuing to sell its easily modifiable pistols to civilian residents of Maryland. Plaintiffs also seek relief in the form of restitution and abatement for the harm that Glock has knowingly and foreseeably caused.

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