Editor's note: This is a revised version of a published article, which is rewritten and updated to include information about the city of Chicago's new complaint, filed July 22 in Cook County Circuit Court.
While suddenly dropping its initial lawsuit against gunmaker Glock, the city of Chicago quickly returned to court, expanding its complaint to now also include additional claims against suburban sellers of firearms, as well - stores the city's lawsuit accuses of allegedly being "major sources of guns linked to crimes in Chicago."
On July 22, the city and its allies at gun control activist organization Everytown USA filed a notice in federal court that the city was voluntarily dismissing its lawsuit. The notice did not explain why.
Congressman James Comer
| Congressman James Comer official website
However, at the same time the initial lawsuit was withdrawn in federal court, the city and Everytown filed a new complaint against Glock in Cook County Circuit Court. The new complaint also includes counts against Eagle Sports Range, of Oak Forest, and Midwest Sporting Goods, in Lyons.
And the complaint includes counts against an Austrian corporate affiliate of Glock, Glock Ges.m.b.H.
In a statement released Tuesday morning, July 23, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said the lawsuit needed to be refiled and expanded "to ensure that other irresponsible actors who have contributed to the proliferation of easily modified Glocks in our City are held accountable for their role in this deadly new frontier plaguing Chicago’s residents and communities.”
Everytown did not reply to a request for comment sent Monday, July 22.
Mayor Johnson's administration filed suit against Georgia-based Glock Inc. in Cook County Circuit Court in March,.
The lawsuit asserted Glock must pay because it allegedly designed its semi-automatic pistols in such a way that they are easily modified into allegedly fully automatic "machine guns."
A semi automatic weapon fires one shot for each time the trigger is pulled. An automatic weapon fires multiple rounds per squeeze of the trigger.
The city's lawsuit claims Glock's guns can be modified using only a screwdriver and a $20 part, which the complaint asserts are commonly known as "Glock switches," as they allegedly allow users to "toggle" the weapons between semi-automatic and automatic rates of weapons fire. Such "switches" are also generally known as "auto sears."
Glock does not sell the so-called "Glock switch" part.
The city's lawsuit does not directly blame Glock for causing Chicago's "epidemic of gun violence." But the complaint asserts Glock should pay for allegedly making it easier than it should be for criminals to use Glock's weapons to commit violent crimes.
The lawsuit claims Chicago Police seized more than 1,300 such modified Glock pistols from 2021 to May 2024, and federal agents seized more than 8,000 modified Glock pistols from 2017-2021, allegedly making modified Glocks easily the most popular kind of firearm used by criminals in Chicago.
The lawsuit claims Glock allegedly has long known about the modification, but has done little to remedy it. The lawsuit further claims similar weapons made by Glock's competitors aren't so easily modified.
The lawsuit specifically accuses the two Chicago area gun stores of either knowingly selling pistols that can be easily modified using auto sears or actively marketing Glock pistols to boast about the fully automatic capabilities of the weapons using the auto sear switches. The city particularly notes that the Eagle Sports Range shop was shut down by federal agents in 2022, but reopened under a family relative of the previous owner and allegedly has "continued its same dangerous sales practices."
The lawsuit became the first filed against a gun maker under a new state law, specifically enacted to allow such lawsuits against firearms sellers.
The law, which revised Illinois' consumer fraud law, was designed to allow the city of Chicago and perhaps others to build on left-wing activists' and trial lawyers' strategy of using lawsuits to advance progressive policy goals and punish companies making products or selling services that left-wing activists wish to end.
Trial lawyers in Illinois, for instance, have partnered with anti-gun rights groups, such as Everytown, to sue firearms maker Smith & Wesson, claiming they must pay potentially many millions of dollars for allegedly wrongly marketing their semi automatic rifles to entice young men to purchase them. They say this marketing led the man charged with killing seven people in Highland Park 4th of July Parade in 2022 to purchase the rifle allegedly used in the massacre.
In the lawsuit against Glock, the city also claims Glock deceived the public by selling semi automatic weapons which were too easily converted to automatic.
Glock had not yet filed any motions to dismiss the lawsuit. However, the company had removed the lawsuit to Chicago federal court.
Corporate defendants often seek to move lawsuits against them to federal court to better defend themselves under the federal courts' generally stricter standards. Illinois state courts, such as Cook County's courts, have built a reputation of being notoriously friendly to plaintiffs, with much more lax standards to prove injury under the law and wider latitude for trial lawyers to present evidence allegedly backing their claims.
Further, Cook County's courts are dominated by Democratic judges, often chosen by Democratic Party leaders. The Democratic Party is noted for its strong stance in favor of strict gun regulation, such as controversial bans on so-called "assault weapons," including one in Illinois enacted by the state's Democratic legislative supermajority. Illinois' law has been challenged in court as a violation of the Second Amendment, but so far without success, pending appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
By adding two gun stores to the complaint who are based in Illinois, the city can also make it more difficult for Glock to remove the case to federal court again. Lawsuits can be removed to federal court if they satisfy certain criteria, including whether they make claims under federal law or the U.S. Constitution; if they implicate federal laws or regulations; and if they involve plaintiffs and defendants from different states or local jurisdictions.
Plaintiffs seeking to keep lawsuits out of federal court will often add local defendants to defeat such claims of jurisdictional diversity.
The city's new legal maneuvers have drawn attention online from Second Amendment advocates, who have said they believe the dismissal of the initial complaint in federal court could be tied to scrutiny from congressional investigators, seeking to expose alleged potential improper collaboration between Chicago City Hall, Everytown and the White House.
Second Amendment rights advocates noted that the city's lawsuit was withdrawn three days after U.S. Rep. James Comer, R-Kentucky, in his role as chair of the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Oversight and Accountability, sent a letter to the White House demanding the turnover of communications and other documents he hinted could show Chicago's lawsuit could have been aided by improper coordination between the city of Chicago, Everytown, the White House's Office of Gun Violence Prevention and federal firearms regulators.
"As I wrote to you..., the Committee on Oversight and Accountability is investigating potential collaboration between the Biden administration and anti-Second Amendment plaintiffs, including by leaking details of private and official meetings to Everytown for Gun Safety," Comer wrote on July 19.
Comer said his request for documents, initially issued June 14, was met with scorn from the Biden administration, as Deputy Counsel to the President Rachel Cotton reportedly told Comer to "open a real investigation" and should instead devote time to "'examining' other issues related to auto sears."
Comer responded in his July 19 letter by demanding the White House comply with the legally demanded documents and spend "less time obstructing congressional investigations into potential misconduct and misuse of office by White House officials."
The Comer letter was reported on July 22 on the blog Mom-at-arms.com.
Glock is represented in the case by attorneys Michael L. Rice and Holly A. Harrison, of Harrison Law LLC, of Chicago; and John F. Renzulli, Christopher Renzulli and Scott C. Allan, of Renzulli Law Firm, of White Plains, New York.
In addition to attorneys from Everytown Law and the city's Department of Law, the city is represented in the action by attorneys Mimi Liu, Elizabeth Paige Boggs and Fidelma Fitzpatrick, of the firm of Motley Rice, of Washington, D.C., and Providence, Rhode Island.
Under the previous complaint, the city had been also been represented by attorneys with the firm of Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison, of New York and Washington, D.C.