Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison is suing Georgia-based weapon manufacturer Glock Inc. for turning a “blind eye, again and again” to the incidents over the last few years connected to tiny “switch” devices that make it easy to turn the semi-automatic handguns the company sells into fully-automatic machine guns.
According to CBS News, Ellison says his office is filing several charges against Glock including violating Minnesota’s Deceptive Trades Act, and also laws connected to public nuisance, negligence and product liability.
“Glock has known about this problem for a decade and has done nothing,” Ellison said during a press conference earlier this week. “We’re not asking Glock to stop selling handguns. We’re asking Glock to change its designs so they cannot be converted into illegal machine guns.”
“This isn’t just a gun problem, it’s a Glock problem,” Ellison said.
Ellison also says that Glock is marketing automatic weapons to the general public as fun, despite “knowing that the fully-automatic models they manufacture are not legal for the public.”
“Violent criminals are able to pull the trigger once and fire dozens and dozens of rounds at officers and innocent people,” Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said. “People are making money off of other folks’ misery.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says guns are currently the leading cause of death in the country for children under the age of 18 while Ellison pointed out that guns are responsible for 75% of the deaths of law enforcement members in the line of duty.
