Glock Switch Bill Drives CT Handgun Sales Surge
Connecticut's HB 5043 banning convertible pistols is fueling a rush on Glock handgun sales, with dealers reporting the brand now makes up 30% of purchases.
Connecticut gun dealers are reporting a surge in handgun sales, and they’re pointing directly at the State Capitol.
HB 5043, introduced by Gov. Ned Lamont in February and passed by the House this week, would ban the sale of handguns that can be easily converted into machine guns using a thumb-sized device known as a Glock switch. The bill targets what lawmakers call “convertible pistols,” and it’s already reshaping the market before it’s even law.
Richard Sprandel, the owner of Blue Line Firearms and Tactical in Monroe, said Glocks now account for roughly 30% of his sales. “We figured it’s about 30% of our sales,” Sprandel said. “There are other guns that we can sell that are very similar, but Glock is the most popular firearm in the United States.” He and other dealers say anxious customers are buying now, before any ban kicks in.
Why Glocks specifically
The bill takes aim at Glock handguns because of a quirk in how they’re built. Glocks use a cruciform trigger mechanism that can be depressed by a small switch, allowing the pistol to fire rapid rounds like a machine gun. That design vulnerability has been known for decades. Back in the 1980s, a Venezuelan gun repairman named Jorge Leon noticed the flaw and brought it to Glock founder Gaston Glock. According to an interview with ABC News, Glock told him to keep it quiet.
The device itself, the switch, has been illegal in Connecticut and under federal law for years. But illegal doesn’t mean rare.
The numbers are hard to ignore
Nationally, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives tracked a staggering rise in seized switches: 658 in 2019, jumping to 5,816 in 2023. That’s a 784% increase in four years. Federal authorities in Boston seized 3,093 imported conversion devices. The ATF links the acceleration largely to 3D printing, which lets anyone with the right file and a cheap printer produce one at home.
Connecticut isn’t insulated from this. In 2023, the ATF traced and recovered 2,219 guns in the state. Thirty-one of them were equipped with machine gun conversion devices. Hartford alone has recovered 22 switches since 2024. In 2023, Hartford police seized 45 switches, 30 of which weren’t even installed on a gun yet.
Not great, for a city already dealing with gun violence.
Who’s pushing this, and who’s pushing back
Greg Lickenbrock, the senior firearms analyst at Everytown for Gun Safety, has been working to advance similar legislation in states across the country. “We felt this was necessary because of the surge in modified Glock-style pistols being turned into machine guns and wrecking communities across the country,” Lickenbrock said. “This has been a growing problem since about 2017. That’s when police started sounding the alarm.”
Lamont has said the bill is a needed update to Connecticut’s gun safety laws.
Gun dealers and industry advocates don’t see it that way. Their argument is that the bill punishes law-abiding buyers for a weapon modification that’s already a federal crime. They also say it’s unconstitutional, though courts will settle that question if and when it gets there. What they can’t dispute: the pending legislation has been good for business, at least short-term.
Connecticut is among the smallest states to take up this fight, joining California, Maryland, Illinois, and New York in considering comparable restrictions. That’s a notable coalition, and it signals that the convertible pistol issue is climbing up the national policy agenda fast.
This reporting builds on coverage from CT Mirror, which first detailed the bill’s legislative path and the reaction from dealers.
What comes next
The bill now moves to the State Senate. If it passes and Lamont signs it, Connecticut would become one of the first states in the country to ban the sale of handguns based on their convertibility rather than penalizing the switch itself. That’s a meaningful legal distinction, and one that gun manufacturers and their lobbyists will certainly contest.
For residents in Fairfield County towns and Hartford suburbs, the practical question is straightforward: if you own a Glock, nothing changes. The bill targets future sales, not current ownership. But the secondary market and dealer inventory will look different by next year if this becomes law.
Watch the Senate calendar. This one moves quickly.