Key Takeaways
- The Justice Department warns California to drop the Glock ban or face a lawsuit.
- California’s Glock ban takes effect July 1, limiting sales of many pistols.
- The DOJ argues this ban violates Second Amendment rights, as handguns are crucial for self-defense.
- California’s enforcement of handgun roster requirements is also under scrutiny for being unconstitutional.
- The federal timeline is tight, with California needing to respond by June 30.
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
WASHINGTON, DC — The Justice Department put California on notice this week: drop the Glock ban or get sued.
On June 24, Harmeet Dhillon, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, sent Governor Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta a formal notice of suit. She gave the state until 5 p.m. Eastern on June 30 to say whether it will negotiate. If California does not respond, the United States may file its complaint without further notice.
Tick tock! On July 1, CA plans to impose an unconstitutional “Glock Ban.”
— AAGHarmeetDhillon (@AAGDhillon) June 24, 2026
Today, I notified @CAGovernor & @AGRobBonta to drop the unconstitutional restrictions on law-abiding citizens’ rights to purchase legal firearms before the ban goes into effect, or we will sue. Stay tuned! pic.twitter.com/xhGmRt4VPz
The timing is no accident. The law in question, Penal Code section 27595(a), takes effect July 1. That is the day after the deadline.
Californians know this statute as the “Glock Ban.” It came out of Assembly Bill 1127, which Newsom signed last October. Starting July 1, licensed dealers cannot sell what the state calls a “semiautomatic machinegun-convertible pistol.” In plain terms, that sweeps in nearly every Glock and Glock-style pistol built around a cruciform trigger bar.
The DOJ’s position is simple. Handguns are the arms Americans most often choose to defend themselves, and the Supreme Court said in Heller the government cannot ban them. California is banning the sale of the most popular handgun in the country.
Dhillon did not stop at AB 1127. The notice also targets California’s handgun roster, the list a pistol must appear on before a dealer can sell it. To make the roster, a handgun needs a chamber-load indicator, a magazine-disconnect mechanism, and, until recently, microstamping. Those demands are why no new handgun made the roster between 2013 and 2023.
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A federal judge has already taken aim at those requirements. In Boland v. Bonta, the court held the roster’s feature mandates unconstitutional and ordered them enjoined. The judge wrote that Californians have a right to acquire current-generation handguns to protect themselves and should not be stuck with decade-old models to stay safe.
That injunction is stayed while the state appeals, so the roster rules remain in force for now. California also pushed its microstamping mandate out to January 1, 2028. The DOJ argues the provisions are unconstitutional regardless.
Here is the part worth watching. Dhillon is not only calling the laws unconstitutional. She is treating California’s enforcement of them as a pattern or practice of law enforcement misconduct, the same kind of claim the federal government brings against rogue police departments. The authority she cites is 34 U.S.C. section 12601.
The demands are blunt. The state must stop enforcing the laws, acknowledge they are unconstitutional, and agree to a court-enforceable consent decree permanently barring California from passing similar restrictions. The letter also orders state officials to preserve every record tied to the matter.
This is separate from the lawsuit gun-rights groups already filed. The NRA, the Firearms Policy Coalition, and the Second Amendment Foundation sued over the same law last fall in Jaymes v. Bonta. Now the federal government is lining up its own case behind them.
I have said before that California treats the Second Amendment as a privilege the state hands out rather than a right the Constitution secures. A ban on selling America’s most common handgun is that mindset in action. It is good to finally see the Civil Rights Division turn the tools built for civil-rights enforcement toward defending this one.
The clock is running. California has until June 30 to blink, and the law is set to hit July 1. I will be tracking what the state does next and whether the United States follows through.
