Plaintiffs challenging Maryland’s restrictions on so-called machine-gun-convertible pistols filed a consolidated reply on September 22. The filing supports motions for a preliminary injunction in two joined federal cases, Bathras v. Moore, No. 1:26-cv-02074, and Duffy v. Moore, No. 1:26-cv-02647, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. It asks the court to block the restrictions before their January 1, 2027 effective date. No injunction has been entered merely because the reply was filed.
What Maryland’s law reaches
According to the filing and the Second Amendment Foundation’s announcement, Senate Bill 334 bars manufacturing, selling, offering for sale, purchasing, receiving or transferring a “machine gun convertible pistol.” The law defines that category by the presence of a cruciform trigger bar, a component associated with Glock and Glock-style semiautomatic pistols. The plaintiffs describe the covered guns as ordinary factory-stock handguns. Maryland’s position, as summarized in their reply, is that the designs can accept illegal conversion devices and therefore present a distinct public-safety concern.
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The reply says Maryland State Police must publish a list of prohibited pistols, but that list was not yet available when the plaintiffs filed. That leaves an important compliance detail unresolved: owners, dealers and instructors do not yet have the state’s final model-by-model determination. The plaintiffs nevertheless argue that their challenge is ripe because Maryland does not dispute that at least some Glock and Glock-style pistols use cruciform trigger bars and will be covered. They also say the law will reach certain secondary-market transfers, not just sales by licensed dealers.
The statute’s January 1 start date is central to the emergency request. The plaintiffs say they currently possess covered pistols and want to buy, sell, rent or use similar pistols in paid instruction after that date. Their reply states that transfers to a dealer are restricted unless connected to an out-of-state sale. It also disputes Maryland’s suggestion that instructional loans could qualify as gratuitous transfers, arguing that temporary use of a pistol is part of a paid service rather than a free transfer. Those are the plaintiffs’ readings, not a final interpretation from the court.
The constitutional dispute
On the merits, the plaintiffs contend that the law restricts acquiring, keeping and bearing arms protected by the Second Amendment. They rely on District of Columbia v. Heller, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen and later decisions for the proposition that common handguns cannot be banned without a historical tradition supporting the restriction. They argue that a prohibition on transactions is not merely a condition on commercial sales when it also reaches private transfers and prevents residents from obtaining a class of handguns.
The reply also attacks the state’s conversion rationale. The plaintiffs distinguish an unmodified semiautomatic pistol from a machine gun created by adding an illegal switch or making another unlawful alteration. In their view, the possibility of criminal modification does not make the factory-stock handgun itself dangerous and unusual. They compare that theory with regulating a conversion device directly and argue that Maryland has not identified a founding-era tradition of banning an otherwise lawful, commonly possessed arm because a third party might illegally alter it.
Maryland’s historical analogues, as described and contested in the reply, include restrictions involving armed groups, gunpowder storage, Bowie knives, blunt-force weapons, short-barreled firearms and machine guns. The plaintiffs answer that riot laws regulated threatening conduct, gunpowder rules did not ban firearms, and most Bowie-knife laws regulated carry rather than possession or sale. They further argue that 20th-century machine-gun and short-barreled-firearm laws are too late to establish the founding-era tradition required by their reading of Supreme Court precedent. These arguments remain advocacy until the judge rules.
What changes now, and what does not
For Maryland owners and businesses, the filing does not suspend the scheduled ban, authorize a transaction that the statute would prohibit, or identify every covered model. Its immediate practical value is narrower: it completes the plaintiffs’ preliminary-injunction briefing described in the filing and puts their answers to the state’s defenses before the court. Dealers and instructors face inventory and training questions if their pistols appear on the state list, while owners considering an in-state transfer face uncertainty about which exceptions the state and court will recognize.
The next substantive milestone is the District Court’s decision on the preliminary-injunction motions, potentially followed by an appeal. Timing matters because relief entered after January 1 would not prevent the law’s initial effect. The available materials do not provide a hearing date or promise a ruling before then, and they do not include the final State Police list. Until a court orders otherwise, the operative date remains January 1, 2027, and the constitutional merits have not been finally decided.
About the Author
Nick Sawinyh - Nick Sawinyh is a father, husband, hobby farmer, and gun enthusiast from Kentucky. He founded GunsNation and writes most of what appears on this blog.
