Chicago Plans To Expand Its Legal Battle With Glock

On Monday, July 22, lawyers for the city of Chicago filed paperwork to end their high-profile lawsuit against Glock. Does this mean a big legal win for the Austrian gunmaker, and for American shooters? No. Instead of giving up in their aggressive legal battle, Chicago’s leaders are doubling down, and expanding their lawsuit.

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How did we get here?

Chicago’s lawsuit against Glock has been in the works for months now, with the city’s lawyers gearing up to fight the gunmaker over criminals’ illegal full-auto conversions of their pistols.

Here’s what we told you in our initial coverage:

“The suit is a response to unlawful third-party modification with so-called auto sears. These small parts are bought illegally or self-manufactured via 3D printing, then swapped into a firearm in place of the factory-designed parts. When installed, they convert a semi-auto firearm to select-fire, with choice of semi-auto or full-auto firing capability.”

And later on in that piece:

“… The gist of it is this: the city’s lawyers claim Glock has ‘created, maintained, and contributed to a public nuisance in Chicago.’ The city alleges Glock knows its firearms are easily convertible to full auto, but that could change with a design modification—but they say the manufacturer doesn’t do anything about it.

“The legal paperwork then goes on to say other manufacturers’ pistols are more difficult to convert them to full-auto, and says Glock should do the same. Again, these are all allegations in a civil suit, with nothing tested in court.”

Read the rest of our initial coverage here.

The expanded lawsuit

In the expanded lawsuit, Chicago’s lawyers added two local gun dealers and Glock’s Austrian parent company to the target list.

As Fox 32 reported:

“The city filed a two-sentence notice of voluntary dismissal without prejudice Monday, causing some confusion. The lawsuit was refiled on the same day to include Glock Ges.m.b.H, the Austrian Glock entity and part owner of the U.S. Glock subsidiary, and two gun stores on Glock’s roster of preferred dealers, Eagle Sports Range in Oak Forest, Illinois and Midwest Sporting Goods in Lyons, Illinois.”

Chicago’s lawyers claim these gun stores are selling Glock handguns that are then used in crimes, and also say they’re making it easy to test-drive an auto-modded Glock:

“Eagle Sports Range takes it even further, by marketing a Modified Glock to its customers. From the beginning, a major component of Eagle Sports Range’s business plan has been promoting its “full auto experience,” which allows customers to rent machine guns and fire them at its indoor range (a range which it has allowed convicted felons to use). As part of its “full auto experience,” Eagle Sports Range markets the use of a Modified Glock at its range. Eagle Sports Range customers can thus “demo” a Modified Glock at the store’s range, purchase a semi- 5 automatic Glock from the store’s inventory, and then easily and illegally modify their new Glock pistol at home with an auto sear purchased off the internet.”

As we told you last time, these are only allegations in a lawsuit, and they have not been proven in court.

For what it’s worth, the Eagle Sports Range website does not market a modified Glock range rental anywhere we can find on their website.

You can see the rest of the updated lawsuit documents filed in Fox’s story here.