California AG sidesteps Supreme Court's latest Second Amendment ruling in fight over Glock ban

California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a court brief opposing the Department of Justice's effort to block the state's ban on Glock pistols, and barely mentioned the Supreme Court opinion that may decide the case.

Bonta's July 2 filing in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California cited the high court's Wolford v. Lopez ruling exactly once, in passing. That opinion, written by Associate Justice Samuel Alito and handed down just seven days earlier on June 25, directly addressed what qualifies as an "arm" under the Second Amendment. Second Amendment advocates say Bonta's near-total avoidance of the ruling tells its own story.

The dispute centers on AB1127, a law Governor Gavin Newsom signed in October 2025 that made California the first state to ban Glock pistols outright. The DOJ sued in federal court to invalidate the ban along with California's broader "Unsafe Handgun Act" and sought a temporary restraining order to halt enforcement. When Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon tried to discuss a settlement, Bonta refused.

A 'distinctively modern' dodge

Bonta's office framed the Glock ban as a public-safety measure aimed at machine-gun conversion devices. The filing argued:

"AB 1127 was a reasonable legislative response to the growing spread of, and increasing accessibility to, what California law calls a 'pistol converter,' and what the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (U.S. ATF) calls 'machinegun conversion devices' or 'MCDs.'"

The brief also called a semiautomatic pistol that can be converted with a 3-D printed device "a 'distinctively modern' problem." That phrase appears to borrow language from prior Second Amendment case law, but it did not engage with the core holding of Wolford v. Lopez, which spoke directly to what the Constitution protects.

Konstadinos Moros, Director of Legal Research and Education at the Second Amendment Foundation, told the Daily Caller News Foundation that Bonta's avoidance was deliberate and revealing:

"Bonta's opposition papers prove one thing: the various hardware bans of California and the other handful of antigun states are on borrowed time. The brief bends over backwards to not cite the Supreme Court's new Wolford ruling on the question of what an 'arm' is, because it makes clear that its arguments are untenable."

Moros zeroed in on the contradiction at the heart of California's position. While Bonta's filing argued that a Glock is not even an "arm" under the Second Amendment, the Supreme Court had just defined the term broadly.

"While Bonta argues a Glock is not even an arm, the Supreme Court just explained that an arm is 'any weapon customarily used for offensive or defensive purposes.'"

More than 23 million Glock pistols have been sold worldwide, and the brand remains one of the most popular among both civilian gun owners and law enforcement in the United States. Calling a firearm that ubiquitous something other than an "arm" is a legal position that now has to contend with a freshly minted Supreme Court opinion saying otherwise.

Settlement refused, fight chosen

Before the lawsuit reached this stage, Dhillon attempted to resolve the matter without litigation. Bonta refused to engage in settlement discussions, forcing the DOJ to seek emergency relief from the court. The case now sits before U.S. District Judge Anne Hwang, a Biden appointee, in the Central District of California.

The pattern of state officials resisting federal authority, and the federal judiciary's role in sorting out those clashes, has become a recurring feature of American governance. Courts have been active on multiple fronts, including cases where federal judges have struck down executive actions on voter verification and other matters.

C.D. Michel, president of the California Rifle and Pistol Association, put the state's strategy in blunt terms:

"California politicians will stop at nothing to make it as difficult and expensive as possible to restrict the right to access popular modern firearms like the Glock, which even Kamala Harris claims she chose for her home defense firearm."

That reference to Harris carries its own irony. During the 2024 presidential campaign, Harris told Oprah Winfrey she owns a gun for home defense in her California home. Moros highlighted the point in a July 3 post on X, noting that the very firearm a prominent Democratic politician claimed to rely on for self-defense is now banned in the state she called home.

Already illegal, twice over

Michel also challenged the premise of AB1127 itself. Converting any firearm into a fully automatic weapon is already a federal crime. Possessing the parts to do so is likewise illegal. California's Glock ban, in his view, stacks a new prohibition on top of existing law while stripping residents of access to one of the most widely owned handgun platforms in the country.

"California law already prohibits access to the latest and safest firearm designs, depriving citizens of the ability to choose a handgun that is best suited for their individual circumstances. CRPA applauds the federal government's efforts."

The broader tension here is not unique to firearms. Across multiple policy areas, state governments have adopted aggressive positions that test the boundaries of federal authority and constitutional rights, and courts have had to intervene. Recent rulings have permanently blocked federal requirements in other contexts, underscoring how much of American governance now runs through the judiciary.

What makes the California Glock case distinctive is the timing. The Supreme Court did not issue Wolford v. Lopez in some distant term. It came down on June 25, one week before Bonta filed his opposition. The ruling addressed the precise constitutional question at the center of the DOJ's challenge: what counts as a protected arm. And Bonta's
legal team mentioned it once.

What comes next

The court has not yet ruled on the DOJ's request for a temporary restraining order. Judge Hwang's decision will signal how seriously the lower courts intend to apply Wolford to state-level firearms restrictions. If the TRO is granted, California's ban would be paused while the broader case proceeds. If denied, the state will have bought itself more time, but the constitutional question will not go away.

Bonta's office did not respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation. The silence fits. When the Supreme Court hands you a ruling that undermines your legal position, the safest move is to pretend it doesn't exist, at least until a judge forces you to deal with it.

California banned one of the most common handguns in America, refused to negotiate when the feds came calling, and then filed a brief that all but ignored the Supreme Court opinion most relevant to the case. That is not a legal strategy. It is a political one, and the Constitution is not impressed by politics.