Just a day before a ban on Glock-style handguns was set to take effect in Connecticut, a federal court granted a preliminary injunction blocking state officials from enforcing the recently enacted law that would ban the nation’s most popular handguns commonly used for self-defense.
On September 30, the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut granted the injunction in NSSF v. Griffin, a case brought by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, Glock Inc., and two individual defendants.
In the opinion, U.S. District Judge Kari A. Dooley wrote: “The Court concludes that Plaintiffs have met their burden of establishing a likelihood of success on the merits. The statute is presumptively unconstitutional, and Defendants have not met their burden of demonstrating that the statute is consistent with our nation’s history of firearms regulation.”
According to an NSSF news release, the foundation contends that Connecticut’s Substitute House Bill No. 5043 (HB5043), a law slated to take effect October 1, violates the Second Amendment. That law would have banned the sale of an entire class of handguns with a cruciform trigger, which are among the most popular-selling self-defense handguns in the United States and the same handguns used by Connecticut State Police.
These handguns employ a proven 44-year-old design and are marketed and sold as semiautomatic firearms, which are legal for sale and possession by law-abiding citizens under federal law. The United States sells over 500,000 handguns of this style annually. Connecticut politicians sought to ban an entire class of firearms because criminals who, by definition, ignore the law, can illegally alter those firearms and criminally misuse them.
“Today’s decision by the Court recognizes there are serious constitutional questions with the law Governor Ned Lamont wants to enforce to deny Second Amendment rights to citizens of his state,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF senior vice president and general counsel. “Connecticut conceded this law implicates the text of the Second Amendment, and it is therefore presumptively unconstitutional.”
Consequently, Keane said the court made the right decision to put the law on hold while plaintiffs submit their arguments.
“Connecticut’s gun control politicians believe there are no bounds when it comes to infringing on the Second Amendment,” Keane concluded. “The reality is this: The Second Amendment is not a second-class right.”
The portion of the act that was enjoined from enforcement provided that: “Any individual or firm, partnership, corporation, limited liability company, association or other similar entity that knowingly imports into [Connecticut] or knowingly advertises, sells, offers or exposes for sale any convertible pistols, as defined in section 53-202 of the general statutes, as amended by this act, that was manufactured on or after October 1, 2026, shall be guilty of a Class D Felony.”
Ultimately, as NSSF pointed out in the news release, Connecticut’s handgun ban law fails the U.S. Supreme Court’s Bruen test. Connecticut will not be able to carry its burden to provide any historical analogue to justify its unconstitutional law.
And, while NSSF warns firearm owners against illegal firearm modification through a “Right Side of Legal” campaign, it also argues that criminals illegally modifying firearms, such as illegally sawing off shotgun barrel or installing illegal “machinegun conversion devices” (MCDs), does not render an intact legally-sold and possessed shotgun or pistol illegal.”
