Baltimore and Maryland authorities on Wednesday sued Glock, the maker of some of the best-selling handguns in America, in an attempt to keep fully automatic guns off the streets. The lawsuit demands Glock take steps to prevent its guns from being modified into machine gun-like weapons capable of firing 120 rounds in one minute, the Washington Post reports. Small, easily installed devices known as “auto sears” or “switches” that are growing more common have terrified law enforcement because they enable high-powered violence not seen since 1934, when Congress banned machine guns after their prominent use by mobsters. But now the number of “modified Glock” shootings is on the rise, including an incident near a Baltimore YMCA in March in which a woman’s car was hit 18 times and police found 41 shell casings nearby. In Philadelphia last year, eight high school students were shot in one spray, including a 16-year-old who was hit nine times. In Memphis in April, a police officer was killed and two other officers wounded in a firefight with two teenagers, one armed with a modified gun.
The lawsuit, filed in Baltimore City Circuit Court, is the first to test Maryland’s new “Gun Industry Accountability Act,” passed by the General Assembly last year to create liability for gun manufacturers and possibly circumvent an earlier related law. The Maryland lawsuit mirrors others filed in Chicago, Minnesota and New Jersey in recent months. After a number of suits against gunmakers failed in the early 2000s, including one in Maryland, Congress crafted the “Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act” in 2005, which protects gun manufacturers and dealers from being held liable when crimes have been committed with their products, though with some exceptions. Everytown Law, the legal arm of Everytown for Gun Safety, thinks Glock can be held liable because it has known for decades that some of its pistols can be converted to fully automatic fire, “but they’ve made what we think is an unconscionable business decision not to fix the problem,” Everytown attorney Eric Tirschwell said. “They can be held accountable because that is not reasonable conduct for a gun manufacturer,” Tirschwell said.
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