MA GUN LAWYER

By Attorney William Smith – www.attorneysmithlaw.com

A federal judge in Connecticut has just delivered an important Second Amendment ruling that could ultimately have implications well beyond Glock pistols—and potentially beyond Connecticut itself.

On September 30, 2026, United States District Judge Kari A. Dooley granted a preliminary injunction preventing Connecticut from enforcing its new prohibition on the sale of certain so-called “convertible pistols.” Glock, Inc. v. Griffin, No. 3:26-cv-01525 (KAD), consolidated for purposes of the injunction with National Shooting Sports Foundation, Inc. v. Griffin, No. 3:26-cv-01528 (KAD) (D. Conn. Sept. 30, 2026). The Court concluded, on the present preliminary-injunction record, that the plaintiffs had demonstrated a likelihood of success on their Second Amendment claim.

The decision should command particular attention here in Massachusetts. Massachusetts has long employed its own system for deciding which firearms may lawfully enter the commercial marketplace—what gun owners commonly refer to as the “Massachusetts Compliant” or approved-firearms roster. The reasoning employed by Judge Dooley raises a fundamental question about how far government may go in preventing citizens from acquiring constitutionally protected firearms based upon subjective (and often utterly baseless) regulatory judgments concerning the firearm rather than the conduct of the person possessing it.

Connecticut Tried to Ban the Legal Gun Because Someone Could Illegally Modify It

Connecticut’s new law targeted what it calls “convertible pistols.” The statute generally reaches certain semiautomatic pistols employing a cruciform trigger bar that can be readily altered so that a machinegun conversion device can be installed. Connecticut defended the measure as an attempt to address pistols that criminals can convert into fully automatic firearms. The State’s position is that these conversion devices present a serious public-safety problem because they can transform semiautomatic pistols into machine guns.

There is an obvious distinction, however, between an illegally converted machine gun and the ordinary semiautomatic handgun from which it might be made. That distinction proved critical.

Judge Dooley emphasized that the unconverted handguns themselves were not alleged to be defective or unsafe in their ordinary configuration. To the contrary, the Court observed that handguns with the trigger mechanism at issue are “extremely popular for purposes of self-defense” and that their possession and carry are protected by the Second Amendment.

That is a crucial point.

The government was not merely prohibiting a machine gun- a platform that is already overwhelmingly illegal to possess. Nor was it simply prohibiting possession of the conversion device. It was attempting to prevent the sale of an otherwise lawful semiautomatic handgun because of what another person might subsequently and illegally do to it.

Under New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), once conduct falls within the Second Amendment’s plain text, the government bears the burden of demonstrating that its restriction is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. Judge Dooley concluded that Connecticut had not carried that burden at this preliminary stage. The Court therefore characterized the challenged statute as presumptively unconstitutional and concluded that the plaintiffs had established a likelihood of success on the merits.

The Historical Analogy That Failed—and Why Massachusetts Should Pay Attention

Connecticut attempted to justify its law in part by relying upon historical “proving laws.” These were early laws requiring firearms to satisfy manufacturing, inspection, or safety requirements before being sold.

And here the Connecticut decision becomes especially interesting for Massachusetts.

The State specifically relied upon an early Massachusetts law requiring firearms manufactured in the Commonwealth to be inspected before sale and stamped with a proof mark. Judge Dooley cited Granata v. Campbell, 798 F. Supp. 3d 46, 61 (D. Mass. 2025), in discussing that history.

But the Court identified an important difference between those historical regulations and Connecticut’s modern prohibition.

Historical proving laws were directed toward whether the firearm was safely manufactured at the time it entered commerce. They were not designed to prevent some hypothetical future misuse or illegal modification of an otherwise lawful firearm after its sale. Judge Dooley explained that those historical laws could not “forestall future misuse of the firearm (even if predictable) after it enters the stream of commerce.”

That distinction could become important in future challenges to modern firearm rosters.

A government may have considerably stronger historical support for requiring that a firearm be mechanically sound—that its barrel will not burst, for example—than for deciding that an otherwise functional firearm cannot be sold because regulators disfavor its design, features, or potential misuse.

Those are very different propositions.

The Sawed-Off Shotgun Problem

Perhaps the most devastating illustration is one that appears directly in the Connecticut litigation itself.

The plaintiffs argued that the American historical tradition has generally been to prohibit the illegal modification, rather than prohibit the underlying lawful firearm merely because it can be modified. The Court specifically recounted their sawed-off-shotgun example: when government confronted the perceived dangerousness of sawed-off shotguns, the response was to regulate the modified weapon—not “to ban shotguns altogether.”

An ordinary shotgun, for example, can be physically altered into an unlawfully short-barreled shotgun. Indeed, the conceptual process is obvious from the name itself: an otherwise lawful shotgun can become a prohibited configuration if its barrel or overall dimensions are unlawfully shortened.

But would that mean the government can prohibit the sale of ordinary shotguns because a criminal could illegally alter one after purchasing it?

If the constitutional rule were that government may prohibit a lawful firearm whenever someone can relatively easily convert it into an unlawful—and supposedly more dangerous—configuration, the limiting principle becomes difficult to identify.

The same reasoning could potentially sweep far beyond Glocks.

Many lawful objects can be unlawfully modified. The constitutional question is whether government may prohibit citizens from obtaining the lawful article because another person might later transform it into something unlawful.

The Connecticut court’s preliminary answer is important: historical regulations addressing the dangerous modified weapon do not automatically equate to a historical tradition of banning the ordinary firearm from which it could be created.

That is precisely the distinction the Second Amendment requires courts to examine after Bruen.

What Does This Mean for the Massachusetts “Compliant” Firearms Roster?

Massachusetts gun owners should pay close attention.

As we are all acutely aware, Massachusetts law requires the Commonwealth to maintain a roster of firearms approved for sale and use, with the statutory framework now appearing principally in G.L. c. 140, § 131¾ and related provisions. The current Massachusetts system continues to publish an Approved Handgun Roster, and the Firearm Control Advisory Board participates in the testing and roster process.

The Connecticut ruling does not invalidate Massachusetts’ roster. It is a federal District Court preliminary-injunction ruling in another state, and Judge Dooley expressly cautioned that the result was based upon the present record and that further development could potentially affect the ultimate outcome.

But its reasoning supplies potentially important ammunition for future constitutional challenges. The question is no longer whether Massachusetts labels a restriction a “safety” regulation- a paradigm this state’s government seems to not want to let go of.

Under Bruen, the constitutional inquiry instead concerns historical tradition. And Glock demonstrates why courts must look carefully at what historical laws actually did.

If Massachusetts relies upon historical proof-testing statutes as justification for restricting the commercial availability of modern handguns, Glock suggests an important response: proof laws regulated whether a firearm was mechanically safe as manufactured and sold. They did not necessarily authorize government to exclude an otherwise commonly possessed, functional firearm because officials fear how criminals might later alter, misuse, or configure it.

That distinction could matter enormously.

“Approved” by Whom—the Constitution or the Government?

There is also a larger constitutional question lurking behind firearm rosters.

District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), held that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess arms, particularly for self-defense. Bruen rejected means-end scrutiny in Second Amendment cases and instructed courts to examine text and historical tradition instead.

Against that background, the idea of a government-created list deciding which ordinary handguns citizens may purchase deserves careful constitutional scrutiny.

Massachusetts currently publishes an Approved Handgun Roster and directs manufacturers seeking inclusion to submit firearms through approved testing laboratories. State law requires the Secretary of Public Safety and Security, with advice from the Firearm Control Advisory Board, to maintain and periodically update the approved-firearms roster.

But calling a system a “safety” program does not answer the Second Amendment question.

The government still must justify burdens on protected conduct under the methodology required by the Supreme Court. And, as the Connecticut court recognized, an old law requiring proof that a firearm would safely function when fired is not necessarily analogous to a modern law preventing citizens from purchasing an otherwise lawful firearm because of what somebody might someday do with it.

Punish the Illegal Conduct—Not the Constitutionally Protected Arm

There is a straightforward principle running through the Connecticut decision.

If someone illegally converts a semiautomatic handgun into a machine gun, punish that unlawful conduct.

If someone unlawfully manufactures or possesses a machinegun conversion device, enforce the laws governing that device.

If someone unlawfully converts a conventional shotgun into a prohibited short-barreled shotgun, prosecute the unlawful conduct where the applicable law permits.

But the existence of an illegal modification does not automatically establish constitutional authority to prohibit the lawful firearm from which the illegal weapon might be made.

Otherwise, there may be virtually no stopping point.

The same theory that says, “This Glock can potentially be converted into an illegal machine gun, therefore we can ban the Glock,” logically invites the question: “This shotgun can potentially be converted into an illegal short-barreled shotgun, therefore why can’t we ban the shotgun?”

Indeed, the sawed-off-shotgun analogy is not some fanciful slippery-slope argument invented after the fact. It was part of the plaintiffs’ historical argument discussed by Judge Dooley herself. The Court found the distinction between regulating unlawful modifications and banning the underlying lawful firearm significant in concluding that Connecticut had not established the required historical analogue.

A Decision Massachusetts Gun Owners Should Watch Closely

Glock v. Griffin is only at the preliminary-injunction stage. The litigation is not over, and the September 30 order should not be mistaken for a final appellate determination that every regulation based upon firearm design or convertibility violates the Second Amendment.

Nevertheless, its reasoning matters.

It recognizes that an ordinary semiautomatic handgun does not lose Second Amendment protection merely because a criminal might illegally transform it into something else. It demands a genuine historical analogue rather than accepting “public safety” as a substitute for the historical inquiry required by Bruen. And it recognizes the critical distinction between regulating whether a firearm is safe when sold and attempting to prevent its hypothetical future criminal misuse.

For Massachusetts, that reasoning raises questions that may eventually reach the Commonwealth’s own roster system.

The Massachusetts government may call a firearm “compliant,” “approved,” or “unsafe.” But constitutional protection does not ultimately depend upon an administrative label. The deeper question is whether the government has historical authority to prevent law-abiding citizens from acquiring an otherwise protected firearm in the first place.

The Connecticut litigation may become an important part of the developing answer.

And perhaps its simplest lesson is also its most powerful:

May government ban a lawful firearm merely because somebody else could theoretically illegally turn it into one?