By Sara Jean Green
The Seattle Times
SEATTLE — The City of Seattle filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the manufacturer of one of the world’s most popular handguns and three local gun shops that sell Glock pistols and accessories, alleging the defendants are creating a public nuisance by marketing, selling and glorifying guns that can easily be converted into illegal automatic weapons that have been increasingly used to commit crimes.
At the heart of the lawsuit are Glock switches, also known as auto sears, which are dime-sized pieces of metal or plastic that can be attached to the back of a Glock handgun without the need for specialized tools or skills. The switches are cheap and can easily be bought online or made with a 3D printer.
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The switches interfere with a handgun’s firing pin, converting it into a machine gun that can spray a large number of bullets indiscriminately, increase potential harm to bystanders and responding police officers, and drain police resources, since each casing and bullet recovered at a shooting scene must be collected and forensically analyzed individually, according to the city’s lawsuit.
In a 61-page complaint filed in King County Superior Court , Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison asserts the city has a “manifest interest” in protecting its residents from the effects of the easily converted weapons. The suit alleges Glock has known for nearly 40 years that its handguns are vulnerable to conversion to illegal automatic weapons and has repeatedly refused to alter the design of its firearms.
Named as defendants in the city’s lawsuit are Glock Inc. , based in Smyrna, Ga. , and its parent company, Glock GmbH , also known as Glock Limited , which has its principal place of business in Deutsch-Wagram, Austria . Glock Limited and INC Holding GmbH , an Austrian holding company, jointly own Glock Inc. , which imports Glock handguns and component parts for sale in the U.S.
Bull’s Eye Indoor Range in Tacoma , Pantel Tactical in Renton and Rainier Arms in Auburn are also named as defendants, since they are all authorized dealers of Glock products and have each sold at least one Glock handgun that was illegally converted into an automatic weapon and recovered by Seattle police during a criminal investigation, the lawsuit says.
Glock Inc. and the named authorized dealers allegedly posted videos and comments about converted Glocks on their social media pages, promoting automatic weapons without warning consumers that such weapons have been illegal in the U.S. since the 1930s, according to the city’s suit.
Partly due to Glock’s glorification of automatic weapons as “fun,” converted Glocks are now seen as a status symbol that give shooters a competitive advantage and have “raised the stakes of gun-related violence in Seattle and across the country,” the lawsuit says.
Employees contacted by phone Tuesday at each of the local gun shops declined to comment on the city’s lawsuit. The names of attorneys representing Glock Inc., its parent company, and the gun shops are not yet available in the online database of court records run by the King County Superior Court clerk’s office.
The city is being represented by Seattle law firm Keller Rohrback.
Chicago and Baltimore have filed similar lawsuits against Glock, as have the attorneys general of Minnesota and New Jersey.
The city of Seattle’s lawsuit notes Glock switches that allow handguns to be fired automatically are prevalent in pop culture, showing up in song lyrics and video games. Glock also promotes the ease with which its guns can be equipped with accessories and aftermarket parts, giving rise to Glock handguns now colloquially known as “Gucci Glocks,” with photos of accessorized guns found all over social media, the lawsuit says.
While similar handguns made by other manufacturers are designed to complicate installation of an auto sear, “Glock’s failure to correct this vulnerability allows criminals to circumvent federal and state prohibitions on fully automatic weapons,” according to the suit.
Though Glock could make its trigger bar system more difficult to convert, it “has repeatedly and intentionally chosen not to do so,” the lawsuit says.
The Seattle Police Department, which tracks the number of shell casings found at each shooting scene, has seen a dramatic increase since 2020, possibly reflecting an increase in the use of automatic weapons like converted Glocks. In 2020, investigators collected 2,514 casings from shooting scenes, a number that more than doubled to 5,746 in 2023, according to the city’s suit.
The lawsuit also highlights several criminal investigations, both locally and nationally, in which at least one converted Glock is believed to have been used, including a May shooting in Pioneer Square that killed three people and critically wounded a fourth. At least one of the Pioneer Square victims was an innocent bystander, according to police.
“All members of the Seattle community are at risk of physical harm associated with catching a stray bullet from a converted Glock and are harmed by diverted resources and additional expenditures attributable to converted Glocks,” the lawsuit says. “But some community members, and in particular, police officers, are more likely to experience such gun violence.”
The city also experiences “particular harm” due to the time and money it has to spend “securing and investigating crime scenes where Glock switches were used,” it says.
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