Yesterday, New York State Senator Zellnor Myrie and Assembly Member Michaelle Solages introduced a first-of-its-kind bill that would prohibit gun makers like Glock from selling new semi-automatic pistols in the state unless they take steps to prevent them from being turned into illegal machine guns with small devices known as “Glock switches.” The bill, S.9225, is a response to the drastic increase in pistols illegally modified with Glock switches being recovered from crime scenes — including mass shootings — across the United States in recent years.
Despite the nickname, Glock switches are not made or sold by Glock. These third-party devices, 3D printed or found online for $25, turn semi-automatic pistols into illegal fully automatic machine guns that can fire up to 1,200 rounds per minute with a single pull of the trigger, leading to significantly more victims in shootings. To learn more, click here.
Notably, S.9225 would not affect current Glock owners, and military and law enforcement personnel would still be able to purchase Glocks and other similarly convertible pistols in New York.
More pressure on Glock
The introduction of S.9225 comes after New York State lawmakers proposed bills to update the state’s landmark industry accountability law to explicitly require gun makers take steps to ensure their firearms cannot easily be turned into machine guns simply by the installation of Glock switches. Those who fail to do so would face civil liability.
In March, the City of Chicago filed a lawsuit against Glock alleging that the company “endangers the health and safety of Chicagoans” by producing and selling semi-automatic pistols that are uniquely easy to convert into illegal machine guns. According to the city’s complaint, Chicago police have recovered more than 1,100 Glock machine guns between 2021 and 2023, and Glock has allegedly known about the easy convertibility of its pistols since around 1987 — when the company’s founder, Gaston Glock, met with a Glock switch inventor — but has so far refused to take meaningful action to rectify the problem by, say, redesigning its weapons in a way that prevents these illegal conversions.
After that lawsuit was announced, a coalition of attorneys general from 12 states and Washington, D.C., asked Glock to preserve documents related to its pistols’ ability to be converted into machine guns, an indication that the states and D.C. are investigating whether the sale of such easily modifiable guns violates their laws.
During a press conference announcing S.9225, Angela Ferrell-Zabala, executive director of Moms Demand Action, part of Everytown for Gun Safety’s grassroots network, said, “It is ridiculous that machine guns — yes, machine guns — are turning up at crime scenes in New York and across the country. All because Glock, manufacturer of the most popular handgun in America, would rather protect the millions that it rakes in rather than take the reasonable steps to prevent those same handguns from being converted into weapons of war.”
No other major manufacturers, including Sig Sauer and Smith & Wesson, currently produce pistols that are as easily compatible with Glock switches.
machine gun regulations
Because of the extreme danger they pose to the public, federal law prohibits civilians from owning machine guns and the parts used to create them — including Glock switches — manufactured after May 1986. Additionally, New York prohibits machine guns and “rapid-fire modification devices” like bump stocks and Glock switches. S.9225 builds off these regulations. If enacted, it would prevent gun makers from selling new pistols that are easy to modify with Glock switches into New York State.
Time will tell if other states adopt similar measures.