NRA sues California after Newsom signs ban on ‘switches’ that turn handguns into machine guns

A new California law that bans Glock-style pistols that enable illegal machine gun conversion devices to be attached is being challenged in court by the NRA, who accuse the state of seeking to “disarm law-abiding citizens” and violating the Second Amendment.

Assembly Bill No. 1127 was introduced in July by Democratic Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel and finally signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom last week.

It blocks the sale of semiautomatic pistols that feature “cruciform trigger bars,” informally known as “switches,” which facilitate the easy conversion of the weapons into even deadlier, rapid-fire models.

“Newsom and his gang of progressive politicians in California are continuing their crusade against constitutional rights,” John Commerford, executive director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action, said in a statement.

“They are attempting to violate landmark Supreme Court decisions and disarm law-abiding citizens by banning some of the most commonly owned handguns in America,” he added.

In July, Gabriel told the California Senate Public Safety Committee, “Automatic weapons are exceptionally lethal and capable of firing hundreds of rounds per minute; they are illegal in California,.”

“Unfortunately, some semiautomatic firearms feature a dangerous design element allowing them to be converted to automatic weapons through the attachment of an easy-to-use device known as a switch.”

But his legislation is now being challenged in a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California that lists the NRA, the Firearms Policy Coalition, and the Second Amendment Foundation among the plaintiffs.

The suit claims that the new law effectively “bans the sale of – and correspondingly prevents citizens from acquiring – a weapon in common use violates the Second Amendment.”

“Semiautomatic handguns with cruciform trigger bars are not different from any other type of semiautomatic handgun in a constitutionally relevant way,” it argues. “The Supreme Court has already held that handguns are in common use and cannot be banned.”

The plaintiffs insist that the only justification for banning the sale of a given firearm is if it is “dangerous and unusual” and that neither criterion applies to semiautomatic pistols, which are “unquestionably in common use for lawful purposes” and “among the most popular handguns in the nation.”

Machine gun conversion switches are illegal in the United States, but they commonly find their way into the country after being manufactured abroad. They can be 3D printed at home, and instructions for their installation are widely available online, according to The Los Angeles Times.

Switches have been found on weapons used in several mass shootings in recent years, notably in an attack in Sacramento in 2022 that saw six people killed and many more injured.

According to the most recent data available from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, there was a 570 percent increase in the number of conversion devices picked up by U.S. police departments between 2017 and 2021.