The Justice Department (DOJ) on July 1 sued California over its ban on “machinegun convertible pistols” and its “handgun roster.”
The law bans the purchase of Glock pistols and guns with similar firing mechanisms, according to a DOJ press release.
The handgun roster limits the handguns California citizens can legally buy.
The DOJ claims both are unconstitutional.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation known as Assembly Bill 1127 in October 2025 to prohibit licensed firearms dealers from selling, transferring, or delivering “semiautomatic machinegun-convertible pistols.”
The law went into effect on July 1, the same day that DOJ sued.
Under the law, a machinegun-convertible pistol is “any semiautomatic pistol with a cruciform trigger bar that can be readily converted ... into a machinegun by the installation or attachment of a pistol converter ... without any additional engineering, machining, or modification of the pistol’s trigger mechanism.”
New York, Maryland, and Connecticut have similar bans.
The law was passed in response to so-called “Glock switches,” which are not manufactured or endorsed by Glock.
The switches have been used by criminal gangs around the country.
Pistols sold before Jan. 1, 2026, are grandfathered under the law, which became effective on July 1.
The devices are prohibited by 29 states and under federal law, according to Everytown Research & Policy.
The lawsuit also alleges that the state’s handgun roster illegally limits Californians’ access to state-of-the-art firearms.
According to the lawsuit, the roster requires specific features such as a chamber-load indicator, which shows the gun is loaded, and a magazine-disconnect mechanism, which prevents a gun from firing when the magazine is out of the gun.
Until recently, the roster also required each gun to mark the handgun’s make, model, and serial number onto shell casings fired by the gun. This is commonly called microstamping.
“As a result of these requirements, no new handguns were added to the roster between 2013 and 2023,” the lawsuit states.
There is currently an injunction against enforcement of the roster.
However, the lawsuit states the DOJ has a responsibility to act because “these provisions of the roster statute violate the Second Amendment.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom criticized the lawsuit in a social media post on X.
“The Trump administration is once again trying to dismantle California’s commonsense gun safety laws. California is seeing historic low crime rates and gun death rates. These laws save lives,” the post reads.
A spokesperson for Newsom’s office reiterated the governor’s statement.
Spokesperson Diana Crofts-Pelayo stated that the state has data showing its gun laws have saved lives.
“We won’t be intimidated by another politically motivated lawsuit. We'll continue defending the laws that protect Californians and keep dangerous weapons off our streets,” Crofts-Pelayo stated in an email to The Epoch Times.
According to the DOJ, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect the individual right to carry handguns outside the home for self-defense.
The lawsuit contends the California laws infringe on that right.
“The Civil Rights Division will defend law-abiding citizens from states that seek to disarm them illegally,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon.
“This lawsuit is yet another example of this Justice Department enforcing the Second Amendment by protecting citizens against unconstitutional state regulation of firearms.”
