City sues gunmaker Glock alleging design flaw that allows pistols to be converted to automatic

The city of Chicago has sued Glock, one of the largest firearms manufacturers in the world, accusing the gunmaker of willfully ignoring design flaws in its handguns that allow for them to be easily turned to fire automatic rounds.

A spike in the use of “auto sears” or “switches” — quarter-sized devices affixed to Glock pistols that allow for multiple bullets to be fired with one trigger pull — has only exacerbated the city’s entrenched violence problems, city attorneys allege.

“Instead of taking reasonable action to put an end to the modification of its pistols by civilians, Glock has made the business decision to continue profiting from the sales of its easily modifiable guns to the civilian market,” the complaint, an advanced copy of which was provided to the Tribune, states.

“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,” the suit states.

For their part, Chicago police officers have recovered more than 1,100 Glock pistols outfitted with a switch in the last two years, city lawyers say, but only after the guns were used in scores of shootings and other violent crimes. One “chilling aspect of this epidemic,” city lawyers say, “is its relationship to minors.”

“While Chicago has long struggled with an epidemic of gun violence, it is unquestionable that the ease of modification of Glocks and the resulting prevalence of Modified Glocks have made the situation worse,” the complaint states. “Criminals armed with Modified Glocks are emboldened because of their military-grade firepower, and they kill and injure more people, increasing the terror felt by ordinary Chicagoans.”

A representative for Glock did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

The complaint, filed Tuesday in Cook County Circuit Court, accuses Glock of violating the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Business Practices Act, as well as the Chicago municipal code, by selling the modifiable guns to civilians who don’t work in law enforcement — “anyone with $20 – $25 to spare and a desire to circumvent long-standing federal and state prohibitions on possessing fully automatic machine guns can do so by buying an auto sear and affixing it to a Glock pistol.”

Attorneys for the city say the lawsuit is the first of its kind to be filed since the Illinois General Assembly amended the state’s consumer fraud law year to include firearm manufacturers.

“While it is illegal to sell machine guns to non-law enforcement personnel, except under very limited circumstances, Glock sells, manufactures, imports, and markets pistols that easily accept auto sears to civilians, thereby facilitating the proliferation of illegal machine guns,” city attorneys wrote.

In addition to monetary damages, the city has asked that Glock be barred from 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.”

The case will be heard by a Cook County judge at the Daley Center, and the first hearing is scheduled for mid-July, according to court records.

In 2021, the city brought a lawsuit in Cook County court against a gun shop in Gary, arguing that the shop had repeatedly violated federal laws by knowingly selling weapons to straw purchasers. A judge ultimately dismissed the suit last year, though the shop’s owner closed the business a few months later.