SB 334 punishes lawful gun owners for crimes they didn’t commit. Federal courts may not let it stand.
By Michael Phillips | MDBayNews
Governor Wes Moore signed Senate Bill 334 into law on Tuesday, making Maryland the second state in the country to ban the sale, purchase, transfer, and manufacture of Glock pistols and similar semi-automatic handguns. The ink was barely dry before three of the nation’s most prominent gun rights organizations filed a federal lawsuit challenging the law. The question that will define this fight is not whether Maryland can regulate firearms — it plainly can — but whether it can ban the most popular handgun in America because someone else might illegally modify it.
The answer, under existing Supreme Court precedent, is almost certainly no.
What SB 334 Actually Does
The law targets what it calls “machine gun convertible pistols” — defined as any semi-automatic firearm with a cruciform trigger bar. That design feature is characteristic of virtually every Glock and Glock-style handgun on the market. Beginning January 1, 2027, Marylanders will be prohibited from buying, selling, transferring, or manufacturing such firearms. Current owners may keep what they have, but cannot sell or transfer them except to immediate family members. Violations carry penalties of up to three years in prison.
The legislation was sponsored by Sen. Sara Love (D-Montgomery County) and Del. Nicole Williams (D-Prince George’s County). It passed the House 92–39 and cleared the Senate 28–16 along largely party-line votes. Moore signed it as part of a batch of 275 bills on Tuesday.
Law enforcement officers, both active and retired, are exempt. The state police will be tasked with publishing a list of prohibited models.
The Core Problem: Punishing the Gun for the Crime of the Switch
The stated rationale for SB 334 is the proliferation of “Glock switches” — small aftermarket devices that can be attached to a Glock’s slide to convert it from semi-automatic to fully automatic fire. These devices are genuinely dangerous and genuinely common in certain criminal ecosystems. They are also already illegal — classified as machine guns under the National Firearms Act and banned separately under Maryland law.
SB 334 does not address Glock switches. It addresses Glocks. The legislature’s logic is that because criminals illegally modify a legal firearm using illegal devices, the legal firearm should be banned from future sale to law-abiding citizens. That is not crime policy. It is transference — moving accountability from the person breaking the law to the person who never did.
“This is as foolish as banning hops and barley to prevent drunk driving.”
— SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut
The Maryland House Republican Caucus made this point directly in a letter urging Moore to veto the bill before he signed it. The caucus wrote that SB 334 “bans law-abiding citizens from purchasing the most popular handgun in the state because the handgun could be converted from semi-automatic” — with the conversion device already being federally prohibited.
The Lawsuit Filed Before the Ink Dried
The National Rifle Association, Firearms Policy Coalition, and Second Amendment Foundation filed a federal lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland on the same day Moore signed SB 334. The defendants are Moore, Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown, and Michael A. Jackson, acting superintendent of the Maryland State Police.
The 13-page complaint argues the law is not a regulation of machine gun conversion — it is a handgun ban. “Glock and Glock-style pistols are not relevantly different from any ordinary semi-automatic handgun,” the complaint states. “These pistols are in common use; indeed, they are among the most popular firearms in the nation. Yet if SB 334 is enforced, ordinary Marylanders will have no way to lawfully acquire these common, constitutionally protected arms. That is a handgun ban. The fact that the ban targets only one category of popular handguns does not make it constitutional.”
NRA-ILA Executive Director John Commerford was direct in his response to Moore’s signature: “With a single stroke of his pen, Governor Wes Moore has banned one of the most popular handguns in America. Instead of going after criminals and enforcing existing laws, he has chosen to disarm law-abiding Marylanders.”
The Constitutional Foundation Is Shaky
The legal challenge has a strong footing. In District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), the Supreme Court held that handguns are the “quintessential self-defense weapon” and that the Second Amendment protects the right to keep them in common use for lawful purposes. In New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022), the Court established that any modern firearms restriction must be consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation — a standard that has made broad categorical bans difficult to sustain.
Glock pistols are, by virtually any measure, in common use. They are the sidearm of the FBI and dozens of other law enforcement agencies. They are among the best-selling handguns in the United States. Maryland’s assertion that they can be reclassified as functionally equivalent to machine guns — because someone outside the law might make them so — stretches the Bruen framework past its breaking point.
Maryland Shall Issue president Mark Pennak, who signaled the likelihood of a legal challenge before Moore signed the bill, has called SB 334 unconstitutional on precisely these grounds.
California Went First — And Is Already in Court
Maryland is following California’s lead, where Governor Gavin Newsom signed an identical ban in October 2025 under AB 1127. That law takes effect July 1, 2026, and is already facing a federal legal challenge — Jaymes v. Bonta — filed by the NRA, Firearms Policy Coalition, and Second Amendment Foundation, the same coalition now suing Maryland.
Maryland legislators had a preview of exactly where this legal road leads. They proceeded anyway. When the California case concludes — whether by injunction, summary judgment, or appellate ruling — that outcome will almost certainly determine the fate of SB 334 as well. Maryland opted to buy a ticket on a train California already boarded, with no guarantee it reaches the station.
The Business Impact Is Not Theoretical
Tim Hafer, owner of Hafer’s Guns in Hagerstown, told The Banner that Glocks and Glock-style handguns represent between 30 and 40 percent of pistol sales at his store. That is not a rounding error — it is a third to nearly half of handgun commerce, eliminated by statute. Maryland’s licensed firearms dealers, many of them small businesses, will absorb that loss beginning January 1, 2027, assuming the law survives its legal challenges.
Those challenges, notably, will be litigated in part at taxpayer expense. The state will spend public money defending a law modeled on one already under federal challenge in California, signed despite explicit warnings from the Republican caucus, from Maryland Shall Issue, and from national firearms law experts that it could not survive Bruen scrutiny.
A Pattern Worth Noting
This is not the first time Moore has signed major legislation with an immediate legal vulnerability attached. It is worth asking — as a matter of executive accountability, not partisan point-scoring — whether the administration conducted a credible constitutional analysis of SB 334 before the governor affixed his signature, or whether the political benefit of the signing ceremony outweighed the legal risk to Maryland’s treasury.
The answer may come relatively quickly. Federal courts have moved with some urgency on Second Amendment challenges post-Bruen, and the California litigation provides a ready parallel. Maryland gun owners, firearms dealers, and taxpayers all have a stake in how this proceeds.
Moore signed a bill Tuesday. The courts will decide whether it was a law.
Sources
Second Amendment Foundation, press release: “SAF Files Lawsuit Challenging Newly Signed Maryland Glock Ban,” May 26, 2026 — saf.org. AmmoLand News: “NRA, FPC, SAF Sue Maryland Over Glock-Style Handgun Ban,” May 27, 2026 — ammoland.com. The Daily Record: “MD House GOP Calls on Wes Moore to Veto Bill,” May 7, 2026 — thedailyrecord.com. The Baltimore Banner: “Maryland Lawmakers Approve Bill Banning Popular Glock Handgun Sales,” April 8, 2026 — thebanner.com. AmmoLand News: “NSSF, Gun Rights Groups Oppose Maryland’s New Glock-Style Pistol Ban,” April 20, 2026 — ammoland.com. Washington Times: “NRA Readies Lawsuit Against Maryland’s New ‘Glock Ban,'” May 26, 2026 — washingtontimes.com. Maryland General Assembly, SB 334 — mgaleg.maryland.gov. District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008). New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022).
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