Chicago expands its Glock lawsuit, naming 2 area gun stores
City Hall expanded its high-profile lawsuit against firearm maker Glock this week by naming two Chicago-area firearms dealers as defendants and labeling them as among “the most irresponsible gun stores in the country.”
Lawyers for the city and the gun safety group Everytown Law filed the updated lawsuit Monday in Cook County Circuit Court, according to the mayor’s office. That’s where the original complaint was filed in March before Glock’s lawyers removed it to federal court.
The city voluntarily dismissed the complaint that had been pending in federal court Monday.
The case centers on the use of an auto sear, described in the new complaint as “a simple, quarter-sized device.” It can be used to essentially turn a Glock into a machine gun, the lawsuit alleges.
The city says Glock has been warned by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives about the gun’s design, “knows it could fix the problem, but has chosen not to, putting profits over public safety, and violating the law.”
The city now says Glock “further aggravates this problem” by using gun stores like Eagle Sports Range in Oak Forest and Midwest Sporting Goods in Lyons to distribute the guns, “even though it knows or has reason to know that these stores are catering to criminals.”
The Sun-Times reached out to both dealers about the city’s accusations. A representative of Midwest Sporting Goods declined to comment. A representative of Eagle Sports Range could not immediately be reached.
Glock has previously rejected the city's legal claims by insisting that federal law protects it from liability over injuries "resulting from the criminal or unlawful misuse" of a gun.
City Hall alleged that Midwest Sportings Goods “has consistently ranked in the top two of dealer sources of crime guns recovered in Chicago dating back to at least 2009.” And it claims that Eagle Sports Range “soared to be the second-most frequent supplier of crime guns into Chicago only five short years after it opened in 2016.”
The city said Eagle Sports Range accounted for 4% of the city’s crime guns that were traced to a known purchaser.
“Midwest Sporting Goods and Eagle Sports Range know that Glocks are easily and frequently modified into illegal machine guns and yet continue to market and sell Glock pistols into Chicago,” the lawsuit alleges.
City Hall says Eagle Sports Range actually goes further by promoting a “full auto experience” and marketing the use of a modified Glock at its range.
“Eagle Sports Range customers can thus ‘demo’ a Modified Glock at the store’s range, purchase a semiautomatic Glock from the store’s inventory, and then easily and illegally modify their new Glock pistol at home with an auto sear purchased off the internet,” the lawsuit alleges.
Ald. Chris Taliaferro (29th), the former Chicago police sergeant who chairs the City Council’s Police Committee, cheered the city’s decision to “hold gun manufacturers accountable” by expanding the lawsuit.
Taliaferro said there is no question guns that can be easily converted to fully automatic weapons are exacerbating the gun violence in Chicago that too often kills or injures innocent bystanders.
"Whenever they can fire automatic, there’s less likelihood of their aim being true," he said. "That’s how innocent folks are shot. It is very difficult to control an automatic handgun. I’ve had my experience with marksmanship and training with them and seeing how inaccurate they are if you press the trigger and allow it to fire automatically.”
Fran Spielman contributed.