The city of Chicago, along with its partners at Everytown Law, have quietly ended their lawsuit against Glock, which accused the gun maker of intentionally designing their guns to be easily and readily converted to full automatic.
The lawsuit was originally filed in Cook County under the auspices of the state’s ““Firearms Industry Responsibility Act”, which was designed to empower anti-gun activists and politicians to sue gun makers for the third party acts of criminals under public nuisance claims. Chicago sought to bar all residents from purchasing Glocks going forward, as well as a ban on their sale throughout the state of Illinois.
In early April, about a month after the lawsuit was first filed, Chicago and Everytown law moved the litigation to federal court. But last week the city and the gun control group dropped the lawsuit, with none of the fanfare that accompanied the initial filing.
State records show the original case was closed out last week, with a notation that the matter was moved to federal court.
Yesterday, the city filed a notice of voluntary dismissal without prejudice with the federal court. The “without prejudice” stipulation could allow the city to pursue the case again.
The filing did not explain why the city made the move.
This is a strange development, and since Chicago didn’t have to give a reason for dismissing its suit we can only speculate on the motivation behind the move.
One possibility is that the city (and their partners at Everytown Law) are now coordinating a broader litigation campaign against the gunmaker, and are planning on re-filing the lawsuit along with additional plaintiffs at some point in the future. Remember, shortly after Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson announced the original lawsuit in Cook County courts, about a dozen blue state AGs fired off what amounted to a pre-litigation demand letter to Glock. In their missive, the AG’s, led by New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin, told company executives to preserve documents related to the design of their pistols and accused the company of manufacturing their products with “reckless disregard for public safety.”
That was back in March, but since then there have been no additional demands or statements from Platkin or the attorneys general of Colorado, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Michigan, Minnesota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington State; all of whom joined Platkin in threatening litigation of their own.
Another possible explanation for quietly dropping the Illinois suit is that the city and Everytown Law have received assurances from the Biden/Harris administration that the ATF will be moving against Glock on its own. The National Shooting Sports Foundation’s general counsel Larry Keane told Bearing Arms that Chicago’s lawsuit was originally filed shortly after the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention met with Glock officials to “pressure and muscle Glock into changing the design of their pistol“. Retired ATF deputy assistant director Pete Forcelli said in his own appearance on Cam & Co a few months ago that the White House office was also pressuring ATF to adopt a rule classifying Glocks (and perhaps other semi-automatic handguns) as machine guns.
I have heard from some good sources that the White House, and don’t forget that the Office of Gun Violence Prevention is run by Rob Wilcox, who’s formerly from Everytown. He has a lot of influence at ATF now, and I know that from a number of sources because I didn’t retire from there all that long ago. One of the things they kicked around was trying to force ATF to reclassify Glocks as machine guns, because they’re so easily converted, in their minds, to a machine gun through the use of a switch. And people within ATF pushed back and Dettelbach didn’t bite into that fishhook and get caught on that… yet. Who knows what happens if the Biden administration has nothing to lose.
It’s entirely possible that Dettelbach has since changed his mind, either voluntarily or under pressure from the White House.
I suppose it’s also possible that Everytown Law and its anti-gun allies have decided that this litigation is a dead-end, but there’s not really any evidence to support that conclusion. Instead, it sure looks like the White House and their friends at Everytown want to make their attack on Glock as big as possible, and have withdrawn their lawsuit while they get their ducks in a row. Stay tuned, because something tells me that Chicago’s dismissal isn’t the end of the gun control lobby’s campaign against the gunmaker.
