Hours after Democratic Maryland Gov. Wes Moore signed legislation that could effectively bar the sale of Glock pistols in his state, gun-rights advocates moved to take the fight from the legislature to the courts.
According to the Daily Caller, Moore became the second governor in the country to approve a ban on so?called machine gun convertible pistols, following Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who enacted a similar measure in October 2025, while lawmakers in Connecticut are weighing comparable legislation. The National Rifle Association (NRA) responded almost immediately, announcing it would challenge the Maryland statute in federal court.
With a single stroke of his pen, Governor Wes Moore has banned one of the most popular handguns in America, NRA-ILA Executive Director John Commerford said in a release. Instead of going after criminals and enforcing existing laws, he has chosen to disarm law-abiding Marylanders and strip them of their constitutional rights. The NRA is filing an immediate legal challenge to this unconstitutional assault on the Second Amendment and will exhaust every option available to ensure this law is struck down.
Moore and Democratic Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown did not immediately respond to requests for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation regarding the impending lawsuit, leaving the governors office silent as the legal battle takes shape. The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) announced it would join the NRAs lawsuit, partnering with the Firearms Policy Coalition to mount a broad-based challenge to the new law.
These pistols are among the most popular on the market, chosen in overwhelming numbers by peaceable citizens for lawful purposes like self-defense, SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut said in a Tuesday release, underscoring that the firearms at issue are standard tools of personal protection for millions of Americans. Maryland has now attempted to ban these firearms because a subset of criminals illegally modifies them, using conversion parts that are themselves illegal to possess, and then commit crimes with the modified handguns.
Not only is this law as foolish as banning hops and barley to prevent drunk driving, but these commonly owned arms are clearly protected by the Second Amendment, the ratification of which takes certain policy choices including this one off the table, Kraut continued, arguing that the state is punishing lawful owners for the actions of criminals. His analogy highlights a central conservative criticism of modern gun-control efforts: that they target inanimate objects and responsible citizens rather than the individuals who break existing laws.
Under current federal law, it is already illegal to possess or manufacture a fully automatic firearm that is not registered or authorized under the National Firearms Act, meaning the criminal misuse of converted pistols is prosecutable without new bans on standard semiautomatic models. Gun-rights advocates contend that Marylands statute therefore duplicates and extends federal restrictions in a way that infringes on constitutional protections instead of enhancing public safety.
Glock pistols rank among the most widely owned handguns in the United States, routinely appearing on lists of top-selling firearms compiled by outlets such as Guns and Ammo magazine. The companys Glock 19X alone sold more than 100,000 units in under six months after its release, according to a 2018 press statement from the manufacturer, illustrating the broad common use status that is central to Second Amendment jurisprudence.
Glock and Glock-style pistols are not relevantly different from any ordinary semiautomatic handgun. That is true even though they may be illegally modified, the complaint filed in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland says. What is more, these pistols are in common use; indeed, they are among the most popular firearms in the nation. Yet if SB 334 is enforced, ordinary Marylanders will have no way to lawfully acquire these common, constitutionally protected arms.
Beyond civilian ownership, Glock pistols are standard-issue sidearms for numerous law enforcement agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which has equipped its agents with variants of the handgun since 1997. Even prominent Democrats have acknowledged the utility of the firearm, with former Vice President Kamala Harris having boasted on multiple occasions about owning a Glock pistol for her own personal protection, a reminder that political elites often reserve for themselves the very tools of self-defense they seek to restrict for ordinary citizens.
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