Delaware Sues Glock in Chancery Court, Asks a Judge to Ban Civilian Sales of “Readily Switchable” Pistols While Admitting Glock Doesn’t Make the Switch

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

WILMINGTON, DE — The State of Delaware filed a verified complaint against Glock, Inc. and Glock Ges.m.b.H. in the Court of Chancery on October 22, 2026, asking a judge to permanently bar Glock from distributing “readily switchable handguns” to civilian buyers in the state. Attorney General Kathleen Jennings brought the case under the Keshall “KeKe” Anderson Safe Firearm Sales Act, 10 Del. C. § 3930, Delaware’s firearm industry accountability law. On top of the injunction, the state wants abatement of the alleged nuisance at Glock’s expense, restitution including disgorgement of profits, and compensatory and punitive damages.

The Delaware Department of Justice announcement calls it a landmark lawsuit, and the 82-page complaint, filed as Case No. 2026-1397 with venue in New Castle County, lays out the theory in detail. “For decades, some gun manufacturers have hidden behind the myth that their industry has no moral consequences, that their stake in our communities ends at the cash register, and that they are neutrals in the war between law enforcement and gun violence. Those days are over,” Jennings said in the announcement. “Glock knew. They could have acted. They chose profit over people.”

The complaint says a Glock switch, an auto sear the size of a coin, sells for under $20 and can be fitted to the back of a Glock in less than a minute, turning the pistol into a machine gun capable of up to 1,200 rounds per minute. It cites ATF figures of more than 5,400 conversion devices recovered between 2017 and 2021, a 570 percent jump over the previous five years, and 3,769 recovered in 2024 alone. For Delaware specifically, the state lists a Middletown resident charged in 2024 with a Glock converted using a switch ordered from China, a 17-year-old in Camden found in 2025 with a 3D-printed switch and two Glock-style ghost guns, a Newark resident found with two switches in 2019, two 20-year-olds caught with a switched Glock and a “high-capacity magazine: during a 2025 traffic stop, and an April 2022 shooting in which 15 rounds struck a vehicle and injured three people.

The design case rests on two features. The slide cover plate comes off without tools, and Glock’s trigger bar does the job that several separate parts do in other striker-fired pistols, leaving a large exposed surface for a switch’s disconnector to push down. The state argues the semi-automatic G17 and the select-fire G18 are nearly the same gun apart from the selector, and that Glock has known the pistol could be converted since April 1987, when Venezuelan gunsmith Jorge Leon showed Gaston Glock an early fire selector on a G17 and Glock told him to leave it “as a curiosity.” The complaint points to the Gen 5 frame tab, which it says can be filed off in seconds, and to the G46, whose one-piece backplate and striker assembly cannot be removed without disabling the gun, as proof Glock could have done more. It also quotes Glock marketing, including an Instagram post saying “the only thing more fun than a GLOCK is full-auto GLOCK” and a headquarters rangemaster calling the G18C selector “the fun switch.”

There are five counts. Three are public nuisance claims under Section 3930, one for conduct “unreasonable under all the circumstances,” one for conduct “unlawful in itself” on the theory that selling a firearm “adaptable for use as a machine gun” already violates 11 Del. C. § 1444, and one for aiding and abetting violations of that statute. The fourth says Glock failed to establish “reasonable controls,” the procedures the law requires of firearm industry members. The fifth is public nuisance under common law, the old principle that a court can order a condition that harms the public at large to be stopped. The statute does the heavy lifting for the state: under Section 3930(e) a criminal’s intervening act does not break the chain of causation, and under 3930(h) the state does not have to prove Glock intended any harm. Sales to law enforcement are expressly carved out.

The complaint concedes the two points that matter most. Paragraph 10 states that “Glock itself does not produce these deadly items.” And the state’s own introduction confirms that switches, converted pistols, and even the parts to build one are already felonies under Delaware law, punishable by up to five years. So the defendant is the maker of a legal handgun, the contraband was designed and sold by third parties, and the people putting it on pistols are already criminals under statutes Delaware strengthened in 2022. The state’s answer is that none of that matters under Section 3930, and that Glock’s own recent redesigns prove the fix was always available. The complaint walks through the V Series announcement, citing my October 21, 2025 USA Carry report confirming the V Series as its source, then notes that switches for the V model appeared within weeks and that the Gen 6, on shelves since January 20, 2026, shares the same changes. The state’s position is that even if those changes work, Glock still owes for the harm already done.

The count that should concern every pistol owner is count two. If a court agrees that selling a semi-automatic handgun “adaptable for use as a machine gun” is itself a felony under § 1444(a)(5), that reasoning does not stop at Glock. Nearly every striker-fired pistol on the market can be converted with the right illegal part, and the complaint’s own description of why Glock is easier to switch than its competitors is a difference of degree, not kind.

Delaware is late to this fight and says so. The complaint recounts Chicago’s suit in March 2024, a March 2024 demand letter Jennings signed with eleven other attorneys general and the District of Columbia, Minnesota and New Jersey filing on December 12, 2024, Maryland and Baltimore on February 12, 2025, and Seattle on September 2, 2025. Philadelphia filed its own suit in March, one NRA-ILA called deceptive. Maryland also went the legislative route with Senate Bill 334, which bans the sale or transfer of any handgun with a cruciform trigger bar starting January 1, 2027. The Second Amendment Foundation, joined by the NRA, Firearms Policy Coalition, Atlantic Guns, and two private citizens, is challenging that ban in Bathras v. Moore, and SAF’s Bill Sack has framed the issue in terms that apply in Delaware too: the conversion is already a felony, the parts are already contraband, and the law targets everyone who would choose one of the most popular handguns on the market rather than the tiny fraction of owners who break it.

More from USA Carry:

• ‘New Jersey’s Ban Is Officially on Notice’: FPC Asks Federal Court to Permanently Block the State’s One-Gun-A-Month Law
• Glock Sues Connecticut in Federal Court to Block ‘Convertible Pistol’ Ban After State Officials Wouldn’t Say Whether Its Handguns Are Legal to Sell
• Ruger, Smith & Wesson and Glock All Told a Court the Same Thing About California’s Microstamping Rule
• One Permit or Fifty? Minnesota Gun Owner Asks Supreme Court Whether Americans Need a License From Every State to Carry
• Licensed to Carry in Ten States, Denied a Gun ID Card in New Jersey Over Online Posts: SAF Asks State Supreme Court to Step In

Nothing changes today for anyone carrying under Delaware’s concealed carry laws. No injunction exists, Glock has not answered, and nothing in the complaint has been proven. But part of a serious carry mindset is watching the legal ground under the gun on your hip, and the relief this complaint seeks is a court order keeping new Glocks away from Delaware civilians while the same pistols keep flowing to the police.

I will continue tracking Delaware’s case against Glock in the Court of Chancery, including Glock’s response once it is filed.

Read the original story: Delaware Sues Glock in Chancery Court, Asks a Judge to Ban Civilian Sales of “Readily Switchable” Pistols While Admitting Glock Doesn’t Make the Switch