Smelling Blood: California’s Anti-Gun Legislature is Targeting America’s Most Popular Pistols

The California Department of Justice released a report that ignores what the data examined actually reveals and instead is being used by gun control groups to push anti-gun state legislators to pass a strict gun control bill that could have far-reaching consequences for law-abiding Californians.

The report is being used in a “name-and-shame” effort against GLOCK, Inc. and their popular handguns. GLOCK pistols are used by millions of law enforcement officers across and millions of law-abiding civilian gun owners across the country.

California legislators, however, are using the report to add fuel to their fire in an all-out blitz against GLOCK and other semiautomatic handguns in the state by pointing to the fact that popularly owned handgun models are sometimes used in crime, just like popular cars are sometimes used in drunk driving accidents.

It’s another example of common sense being in short supply among California anti-gun politicians.

Naming And Shaming

The California DOJ was required by previously enacted laws to collect data on firearms recovered at crime scenes and report on the findings, specifically to name the gun manufacturers behind the models found. Of course, the manufacturer typically has nothing to do with the sale of the firearm to a consumer by a local federally licensed firearm retailer, who obtains the ATF Form 4473 and processes the FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check System verification before the buyer takes the gun home.

In California, however, the process is even more burdensome. The buyer must fill out state-mandated paperwork that the California DOJ keeps on file, be fingerprinted by a state-licensed retailer, pay a fee to the state, wait 10 days, and pass a separate background check run by CalDOJ.

None of that matters, however, especially when the report finds its way into the hands of gun control “journalists” like The Smoking Gun’s Greg Lickenbrock. That’s Everytown for Gun Safety’s Bloomberg-funded “independent” media arm whose stated mission is to “expose” the gun industry. Apparently, elementary math and basic data analysis skills aren’t required for Smoking Gun staff writers.

Lickenbrock took the CalDOJ data and reported that GLOCK handguns were recovered by law enforcement at nearly 19 percent (18.7 percent) of crime scenes involving firearms. That’s followed by other popularly-owed semiautomatic brands like Smith & Wesson (11.6 percent) and Ruger (7.1 percent).

Lickenbrock states these manufacturers, firmly at the top of the CalDOJ’s list, show “strong” indicators that the companies’ “manufacture and sell crime guns,” as if handguns on display at retailers are labeled “crime gun.”

Manufacturers don’t make and sell “crime guns.” They lawfully produce and sell constitutionally-protected firearms. Manufacturers and retailers aren’t legally responsible when unaffiliated remote third parties — criminals — obtain guns through illicit and illegal means in order to commit illegal acts of criminal violence. This is precisely why Congress passed the common sense, bipartisan Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act that anti-gun zealots and politicians passionately hate.

“Together, these five gun makers (including Taurus and Springfield Armory) produced over 47% of the crime guns recovered last year,” Lickenbrock wrote. The total percentages of the recovered firearms from 2022 to 2024 overall, compared to the above 2024 figures, are nearly identical. From 2022 to 2024, the percentage of recovered GLOCK’s was 18.2 percent, Smith & Wesson was 12 percent, and Ruger came in at 7.2 percent.

Writer Lucas Bennett took apart Lickenbrock’s “journalism” and summarized the flawed article succinctly. “GLOCK, Smith & Wesson, and Ruger aren’t only giants in law enforcement, they’re also among the most widely used options for responsible civilian gun owners,” Bennett wrote. “This is not evidence of criminal behavior on the part of the companies. Rather, it is evidence of the mere fact that the most commonly owned firearms are also most likely to be stolen or used illicitly not that manufacturers are redistributing arms to criminals.”

Lickenbrock’s argument amounts to saying Ford cars and trucks are most often used in drunk driving incidents to insinuate that Ford purposefully sells cars to drunk drivers.

Gun Control Fuel

It’s no surprise then to watch as anti-gun politicians in The Golden State use the report to go after lawful and highly-regulated firearm manufacturers in their attempts to restrict the Second Amendment rights of Californians even more than they currently do.

CalMatters reported on the developments, writing “California’s Legislature is poised to ban the sale of one of the most popular types of handguns, like the one owned by arguably the state’s most recognizable Democrat, Kamala Harris.”

Democratic lawmakers are using Assembly Bill 1127 as a way to ban popular GLOCK handguns and other similar striker-fired handgun models. They don’t come out and say the bill targets GLOCK or other manufacturers by name, but their bill is written in a highly specific way to target GLOCK firearms and other popular striker-fired models.

“The bill aims to prohibit gun shops from selling new GLOCK-brand handguns and various off-brand imitators, because the guns can become fully automatic if a criminal inserts a converter, commonly known as a “GLOCK switch,” into the weapon,” Ryan Sabalow reported. “The switches can be made illegally on a 3D printer.”

That’s the key here – illegally converting a legal firearm into an illegal one is…illegal. That also has nothing at all to do with the manufacturer. It would be akin to legislation banning Honda cars because they are disproportionately involved in incidents of speeding and fatal accidents because an illegal aftermarket accessory was added to the vehicles.

AB 1127 is moving fast and could receive final approval by the state’s Democratically-controlled anti-gun legislature any day now. Reports suggest Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom “hasn’t said” if he’d sign the bill into law, but the governor has never met a gun control proposal he didn’t salivate over.

Federal Push

It’s not just the anti-gun politicians in California pushing to ban GLOCKs and other similar models. From the left coast to the east coast, gun control activists are celebrating a federal proposal to do the same in Washington, D.C.

Two of the staunchest gun control supporters in Congress have introduced companion bills in the House and Senate that would punish lawful and highly-regulated federal firearms licensees for the crimes committed by criminals ignoring the laws to cause harm.

U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) introduced H.R. 4198 in the House while U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) introduced the companion S. 2192 in the upper chamber. Similar to the existing law in California behind the released CalDOJ report, the bills would require the U.S. Attorney General to make publicly available a list of firearm retailers with a high number of short so-called “time-to-crime” firearm traces following investigations of criminal acts and to prohibit federal departments and agencies from contracting with those businesses.

NSSF staunchly opposes these bills as even ATF states that a firearm retailer that is contacted in a firearm trace does not mean that the retailer is complicit in a crime. NSSF recently confirmed that ATF’s Demand 2 program, abused by gun control groups and their aligned media arms like Lickenbrock’s The Smoking Gun, is ending.

Antigun politicians already have a stranglehold on California and Second Amendment rights there. The anti-GLOCK bill is moving quickly and could become law soon. It’s another example of antigun activists attacking the firearm industry and the rights of law-abiding Californians while doing nothing about the criminals who are causing problems.

 

Larry Keane is SVP for Government and Public Affairs, Assistant Secretary and General Counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation.