California calls Glocks 'dangerous and unusual' in response to Trump DOJ lawsuit over handgun ban

California Attorney General Rob Bonta has fired back at the Trump Department of Justice over its lawsuit challenging the state's new Glock ban, and his legal strategy rests on a rhetorical sleight of hand that conflates one of America's most popular handguns with illegal machine guns.

In a court filing responding to the DOJ's suit, Bonta leaned heavily on the argument that machine guns, not standard semiautomatic Glocks, are "dangerous and unusual weapons" that fall outside Second Amendment protection. The filing, first reported by Breitbart News, centers on the illegal practice of converting Glock pistols to fully automatic fire using aftermarket switches, devices that are already banned under federal law.

The DOJ filed its lawsuit on July 1, 2026, the same day California's ban took effect. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche framed the fight in blunt terms.

"The Second Amendment is a sacred right belonging to all Americans, even those in California. California cannot ban the most popular type of handgun in America."

That quote, reported by Just The News, captures the core of the DOJ's position: California has effectively outlawed the sale of the most widely owned handgun platform in the country, and no amount of rebranding can make that constitutional.

Bonta's machine gun misdirection

The centerpiece of Bonta's legal response is a passage invoking Ninth Circuit precedent on machine guns. His filing states:

"...even after Bruen, the Ninth Circuit has reaffirmed prior precedent that machineguns are dangerous and unusual weapons that fall outside the scope of the Second Amendment because machineguns can 'fire more than 1,000 rounds per minute, allowing a shooter to kill dozens of people within a matter of seconds.'"

Read that carefully. Bonta is not arguing that standard Glock pistols, semiautomatic handguns that fire one round per trigger pull, are machine guns. He is arguing that because some criminals illegally modify Glocks with auto-conversion switches, the state can ban the sale of the unmodified handgun itself.

That logic has a familiar ring. It is the same reasoning that would justify banning pickup trucks because some people illegally remove their catalytic converters. The illegal modification is already a federal crime. Banning the lawful product punishes every legal buyer for the actions of a handful of criminals.

California's law, Assembly Bill 1127, reclassifies Glocks as "machinegun-convertible" pistols and bars licensed dealers from selling them. Fox News reported that the DOJ's challenge targets this reclassification directly, with Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon arguing that Californians "should not be forced to settle for decade-old models of handguns to ensure that they remain safe inside or outside the home."

The DOJ warned them first

The lawsuit did not arrive without notice. On June 24, Dhillon sent a formal warning to Governor Gavin Newsom and AG Bonta, giving California until June 30 to negotiate or face federal litigation. Dhillon posted the warning publicly, writing on social media: "Tick tock! On July 1, CA plans to impose an unconstitutional Glock Ban."

She cited the Supreme Court's landmark D.C. v. Heller ruling, which held that commonly owned firearms used for lawful self-defense are constitutionally protected. The New York Post reported that Dhillon's letter gave California a narrow window to pull back. Sacramento ignored the deadline.

When July 1 arrived, the DOJ sued, on the very day the ban took effect. The lawsuit challenges not only the Glock ban but also California's Handgun Roster, a regulatory mechanism that had effectively blocked all new handgun models from being sold in the state from 2013 to 2023.

The pattern is familiar across blue states. Democratic governors and attorneys general push aggressive gun restrictions, dare the federal government to respond, and then act surprised when the lawsuit lands. It is the same dynamic playing out in Virginia, where courts have blocked a similar gun ban and local sheriffs have refused to enforce it.

A broader Second Amendment offensive

The Associated Press reported that the DOJ filed lawsuits against both California and Virginia on the same day, challenging state gun laws as unconstitutional. The Virginia suit targets a ban on the sale of certain semiautomatic rifles, including AR-15-style firearms. Blanche described the AR-15 as "the most popular rifle in America", language that echoes the DOJ's argument in the California case about Glocks being the most popular handgun.

The Trump administration's legal offensive comes at a moment when the Supreme Court has been expanding Second Amendment protections. Newsmax reported that the Court recently agreed to hear cases on AR-15-style rifle bans and delivered a unanimous ruling that the government cannot prosecute individuals for firearm possession simply because they use marijuana. The high court also reaffirmed in Wolford v. Lopez on June 25 that states cannot prevent citizens from using common firearms for self-defense.

That legal landscape makes Bonta's strategy look less like a winning argument and more like a rearguard action. His filing leans on Ninth Circuit precedent, the same circuit that has been repeatedly reversed by the Supreme Court on gun cases in recent years. Invoking the Ninth Circuit's view of machine guns to defend a ban on semiautomatic handguns may play well in Sacramento. It is unlikely to impress the justices who decided Bruen and Heller.

The real target: lawful gun owners

Strip away the legal jargon and Bonta's argument reduces to a simple claim: because criminals do illegal things with Glocks, law-abiding Californians should not be allowed to buy them. That is not a serious constitutional argument. It is a policy preference dressed up in case citations.

The conversion switches Bonta's filing highlights are already illegal under federal law. Possessing one is a felony. Manufacturing, selling, or installing one is a felony. The federal government prosecutes these cases aggressively. None of that has anything to do with whether a licensed dealer in Fresno or Bakersfield should be permitted to sell a factory-standard Glock 19 to a customer who passes a background check.

California has a long history of using creative regulatory mechanisms to restrict firearms that are legal everywhere else in the country. The Handgun Roster is the most notorious example, a system that froze the market in place for a decade by requiring microstamping technology that no manufacturer could meet. The Glock ban is the latest iteration of the same strategy: set an impossible standard, declare common firearms noncompliant, and ban them by bureaucratic fiat.

This approach is not unique to gun policy. Across the board, progressive state governments have adopted the tactic of redefining lawful conduct as unlawful and then daring courts to stop them. The same dynamic has played out in battles over voter verification, where federal courts have become the arena for fights that should be settled by legislatures.

And when the Trump administration pushes back, the response from Sacramento and Richmond and Albany is always the same: outrage that anyone would enforce the Constitution against them. Democrats have labeled a range of Trump administration actions "unconstitutional", a word they seem to discover only when it can be aimed at the other side.

What comes next

The case is proceeding in federal court in the Central District of California. Several open questions remain. Has the court issued any temporary restraining order or injunction blocking enforcement of the ban while the case moves forward? What specific relief is the DOJ seeking, a permanent injunction, a declaratory judgment, or both? And will Bonta's filing address standard semiautomatic Glocks separately from illegally modified ones, or will it continue to blur the line?

The answers will matter. If the court accepts Bonta's framing, that a lawful semiautomatic handgun can be banned because criminals sometimes modify it illegally, the precedent would reach far beyond Glocks. Nearly any semiautomatic firearm can be illegally modified. The logic has no natural stopping point.

That is precisely why the DOJ's challenge matters. The Second Amendment does not protect only firearms that no one has ever misused. It protects the right of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms that are in common use for lawful purposes. Glocks are not exotic. They are not unusual. They are carried by police officers, used by competitive shooters, and owned by millions of Americans for home defense.

Calling them "dangerous and unusual" does not make them so. It just tells you how far Sacramento is willing to stretch the law to get what it wants.