NRA sues Maryland over Glock ban, citing Second Amendment violations

Baltimore gun dealers, gun owners and police could soon feel the reach of Maryland’s planned Glock ban after the National Rifle Association and two gun-rights groups sued Gov. Wes Moore, Attorney General Anthony Brown and Maryland State Police in federal court. The lawsuit challenges Senate Bill 334, which would ban the manufacture, sale, possession and transfer of so-called machine gun convertible pistols, semiautomatic handguns that can be altered with a small device to fire automatically with a single trigger pull.

The fight is about more than one brand name. Supporters of the bill have framed it around Glocks because the pistols are widely used and, according to state and city officials, often show up in shootings after being modified. Opponents say the measure sweeps too broadly, bans common handguns and violates the Second Amendment. For Baltimore dealers, the practical issue is whether a state list of prohibited models would force them to pull certain pistols from shelves and stop transfers before the weapons can circulate on city streets.

The General Assembly’s fiscal note says the Department of State Police would have to adopt regulations to carry out the law and publish a list of prohibited machine gun convertible pistols. That step matters in Baltimore because it would give police and dealers a clearer statewide standard for identifying which guns are barred. It would also expand enforcement beyond the street-level arrest of someone carrying a modified weapon, moving the fight upstream to sales, possession and transfers.

Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott has said city police seized 468 Glocks last year, underscoring how often the guns come through the city’s illegal market. Officers also seized 100 modified Glocks in Baltimore over the last two years, a sign that the devices turning handguns into machine-gun-like weapons remain part of the violence problem. The State of Maryland and Baltimore City also sued Glock in February 2025 over the company’s role in the spread of modified handguns used in violent crimes, showing how the city and state have tried to attack the issue from both the manufacturer side and the street-enforcement side.

If the NRA and its allies win, the law could be blocked before Maryland State Police ever publish the prohibited list, leaving Baltimore to rely on existing firearms laws and the separate Glock litigation. If the state wins, SB 334 could become another tool in Baltimore’s violence-reduction efforts, tightening controls on the supply of guns that can be converted into illegal automatic weapons. That debate is unfolding as a federal appeals court in January 2026 upheld most of Maryland’s ban on guns in schools, parks, government buildings and other sensitive places, keeping the state’s broader gun restrictions in place while this new challenge moves ahead.