California Democrats are moving ahead with a bill that would ban the sale of some of the most popular pistols in the United States. The Senate Appropriations Committee is expected to vote on AB 1127 this Friday, and if approved the bill’s next stop would be the Senate floor.
The legislation, which is a key priority for gun control groups, has already cleared the lower chamber of the California legislature, though Gov. Gavin Newsom has yet to make any comments publicly about whether or not he’ll sign the bill if and when it gets to his desk.
Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel (D-Encino), said the measure builds on California’s record of strong gun safety laws.
“Common sense gun safety laws work. That is something that California has proved,” Gabriel said. He added that nearly 20,000 lives have been saved in the past decade because of the state’s restrictions.
Gabriel described the switches as small, inexpensive devices that can be bought for $25 or less, 3D-printed at home and installed with just a screwdriver.
“This tiny device, this switch, can turn something that is a pistol into a deadly lethal machine gun capable of firing hundreds of rounds in a mere matter of mere minutes,” Gabriel said.
And those switches are already illegal to possess under both state and federal law. Instead of going after trigger-pullers, though, Gabriel wants to infringe on the rights of California residents by making it impossible to purchase the Glock models that have been approved for sale by the California Department of Justice.
Gun rights advocates, however, argue the legislation unfairly targets manufacturers. Gun Owners of California previously told ABC10 gun makers have already worked to prevent switches from being added to newer models, but California law blocks those versions from being sold in the state.
The organization told ABC10 that Glock and some of the other manufacturers added features in future generations of their gun to prevent the use of a Glock switch, but the state of California prevents them from selling those guns in the state because of the roster and its limitations. The organization added that lawmakers should focus on criminals instead of new restrictions on the industry.
Older generations of Glocks have been grandfathered in to California’s handgun roster, but the state hasn’t approved newer models for sale because they don’t comply with California’s microstamping mandate. The handgun roster itself is the subject of litigation, and a federal judge granted an injunction against the state’s enforcement of the microstamping mandate, but the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated that decision and the case is on hold pending the outcome of Duncan v. Bonta, which challenges the state’s ban on magazines that can hold more than ten rounds.
Even if CalDOJ did approve newer Glock models for sale, anti-gunners in Sacramento would still be pushing AB 1127. They might amend the legislation to only apply to older models, but targeting Glock is too important for the gun control lobby for Democrats to drop the bill entirely.
In addition to the California ban, gun control groups are aiding lawsuits filed by Chicago and Baltimore’s mayors that also seek to halt sales in their states; a piecemeal effort to ban handguns since the Supreme Court has ruled that banning pistols altogether violates the Second Amendment.
When I spoke to California Rifle & Pistol Association legislative director Rick Travis earlier this week, he predicted the bill will get to Newsom. Will the governor, who’s positioning himself for a presidential campaign in 2028 and has been posing as a Second Amendment supporter, actually veto a gun control bill? It hasn’t happened once during his administration, and Newsom recently posted on X that “the @GOP will continue to do absolutely nothing while our kids are being gunned down,” so my guess is that Newsom will sign the bill into law and claim that prohibiting the sale of some of the most popular pistols in the country isn’t anti-gun at all, but a “reasonable, commonsense” measure.
While passage of AB 1127 might be a done deal, California gun owners should still be contacting their senators to encourage their opposition. And gun owners in other blue states should get ready, because similar legislation is headed your way too. California is a testing ground of sorts for the gun control lobby, and if this gun ban gets traction there it will soon be exported to statehouses across the country.
Editor’s Note: The radical gun control lobby will stop at nothing to enact their agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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