Chicago Expands Glock Lawsuit, Seeks to Hold Glock’s Parent Company and Local Gun Dealers Accountable for Their Role in Endangering the City Through the Sale and Marketing of Easily Modified Glocks

Chicago, IL — On July 22, 2024, the City of Chicago, represented by the Chicago Law Department, Everytown Law, and Motley Rice LLC, expanded the City’s first-of-its-kind lawsuit against Glock, Inc. 

First filed in March 2024, the City’s lawsuit alleges that Glock unreasonably endangers Chicagoans by manufacturing semiautomatic pistols in such a way that they can be easily converted into illegal machine guns in a matter of minutes with a cheap quarter-sized device called an “auto sear.”  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.  Although auto sears are not manufactured by Glock, they are so frequently used on Glocks that they are commonly known as “Glock Switches” and often have the Glock logo on them.  The lawsuit alleges that the design of Glock’s handguns–unlike other popular handguns–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 chosen not to in order to maximize sales and profit. 

The City also seeks to hold accountable two Chicago-area gun stores on Glock’s roster of preferred dealers, Eagle Sports Range in Oak Forest and Midwest Sporting Goods in Lyons for their role in endangering Chicagoans by manufacturing, selling, and/or marketing easily modified Glocks to Chicago consumers.  Midwest Sporting Goods has consistently ranked in the top two dealer sources of crime guns into the City since at least 2009, and Eagle Sports Range has soared to be a major supplier of Chicago’s crime guns, despite only opening in October 2016.  The lawsuit alleges that both gun stores know that Glock pistols are easily and frequently modified into illegal machine guns and yet continue to market and sell Glock pistols into Chicago.  Midwest Sporting Goods also deceptively markets Glocks as safe, but stays silent about auto sears.  Eagle Sports Range takes it even further, by marketing a Glock handgun clearly equipped with an auto sear in videos posted on the store’s social media accounts, which customers can demo at the store’s indoor range. 

The lawsuit also names Glock Ges.m.b.H, the Austria-based parent company of Glock, Inc., the U.S. subsidiary.  The Austrian parent company works hand-in-hand with its U.S. subsidiary and plays a significant role in every aspect of the design, manufacture, and promotion of Glocks in the U.S., and also uses its U.S. subsidiary to distribute its easily modified pistols.

Through this lawsuit, the City is seeking a court order requiring Defendants to cease sales and marketing of easily converted Glock pistols to Chicago civilians and an order requiring Eagle Sports Range to stop marketing Glocks modified with an auto sear at its location and online.  The City also seeks penalties for these actions.  The City first filed its lawsuit against Glock in March of this year, and Glock removed the case to federal district court.  The City is now filing its expanded lawsuit after voluntarily dismissing the federal court action.