July 1: California's Glock ban goes into effect

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On July 1, 2026, a new anti-liberty/gun law goes into effect in California. Its primary feature is a ban on all new Glock handguns and a variety of other similar, striker-fired handguns. Why would California ban the most popular handgun in America? Because of “Glock Switches.”

Graphic: Glock switch. ATF. Public Domain.

These are small, aftermarket accessories, apparently mostly made in China and illegally smuggled into the country. The Chinese don't have America's best interests at heart, but neither does California. They replace the small panel at the rear of some Glock slides—they don’t fit every Glock model—that allows fully automatic fire. Glock does make an automatic pistol, the G18, which is a G17 with a selector switch, but that’s available only to the military and law enforcement.

Glock has redesigned much of its product line at great cost to thwart Glock Switches, but California and other states have rewarded Glock’s civic-mindedness and adherence to the law by banning its products. They haven’t done anything to better catch, prosecute, and jail violent criminals who misuse legal guns. Instead, they’re attacking the guns and depriving honest citizens of their use.

Glock Switches, and any part that might allow a gun to fire automatically, are already illegal. Merely possessing them is a federal felony, as is importing them. Installing them on a Glock creates a machine gun, which is another federal felony. Shooting them, or anyone, invokes state felonies and probably federal terrorism laws. Injuring or killing someone invokes homicide statutes. In other words, the mere possession of such things is already very illegal, using them is more so, and killing someone might invoke the death penalty, but probably not in places like California, where they take an enlightened approach to such things. Rather than punishing criminals for violating multiple felonies, including murder, they prefer to punish people who don’t break the law by making it harder for them to defend themselves against those who do.

Even better, the new law requires gun store owners and clerks to take state-mandated training to divine the mental states of their customers. Minimum wage clerks are suddenly transformed into psychologists empowered to deny unalienable, express constitutional rights without due process. Psychologists are normally prickly about anyone practicing medicine without a license, but hey, it’s guns, so go for it.

Part of my police duties involved teaching officers how to apply involuntary commitment laws, which allowed officers to take people into custody under subjective criteria, for a very limited time, with rapidly mandated judicial review and full due process. Most wouldn’t touch that law with the proverbial 20-foot pole. They were comfortable enforcing criminal laws with clear-cut elements but didn’t want to take away anyone’s liberty based on subjective assessments—their subjective assessments--of someone’s mental health. A few other select officers and I ended up handling all involuntary commitments. And California thinks young, minimum wage clerks are going to be comfortable doing what trained police officers would not, and even today, do not?

In the meantime, the DOJ has been involved in striking down unconstitutional California anti-liberty/gun legislation, and likely will be in a week or so again:

Graphic: X Post

The DOJ had been negotiating with California in several cases currently before the Ninth Circuit, a historically anti-gun circuit the Supreme Court has most frequently overturned. Those cases bear on California’s Glock ban, so the parties agreed to wait for the Ninth Circuit’s decision, but nearly 1,100 days have passed. And there’s more:

The NRA, Firearms Policy Coalition, and Second Amendment Foundation filed suit over the same ban in October of last year, but in March, 2026 the plaintiffs and defendants both requested a stay in the proceedings in Jaymes v Bonta because the "parties are currently in discussions that could lead to the resolution of this case," adding "to allow those discussions to go forward and to preserve both the Court’s resources and those of the Parties, the Parties respectfully request the current schedule be vacated."

The parties then submitted a joint motion to dismiss the lawsuit in early April. In a statement at the time, SAF said the decision to abandon the case was made with the best interest of California gun owners in mind, and that they needed to wait for the Ninth Circuit to issue its decisions in the Renna and Boland cases first. Those cases are challenges to California's handgun roster, and could ultimately have an impact on any litigation involving the Glock ban too.

It appears likely California has no intention of negotiating honestly, and Harmeet Dhillon and the DOJ will be suing California in July, as well they should. California has no interest in protecting its citizens, and every interest in disarming them. Should Democrats once again take control of the federal government, that anti-constitutional interest will go national.

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Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, lifelong athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer, and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.