A federal judge temporarily blocked an effort by Connecticut to ban the sale of handguns that can be turned into virtual machine guns.
The weapons can be made to fire more quickly through the addition of a device called a Glock switch.
The ruling came just hours before the gun sale ban would have taken effect on October 1. Handgun-maker Glock went to court to stop the Connecticut law.
District of Connecticut federal Judge Kari Dooley agreed with some of the company's arguments, at least on a preliminary basis.
She found that the law is likely unconstitutional under the second amendment right to bear arms.
In a decision, the judge wrote that it appears the law is inconsistent with the historical tradition of firearms regulation in the United States.
“The Court concludes that reliance on the proving laws, even when viewed through the lens of a legitimate regulation of machine guns, at this juncture, does not adequately rebut the presumption that the statute is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment,” Dooley wrote.
Connecticut officials argued that there is a tradition of restricting the sale of guns that fire a large number of bullets quickly, like machine guns. The state also pointed to proving laws from several states at the time of the nation’s founding, that set specifications for firearms or required inspection before a gun could be sold.
The judge issued a preliminary order, which blocks the law from taking effect while the case plays out in court.
The judge’s ruling included the Glock lawsuit, and a similar legal challenge to the law filed by the Shelton-based National Shooting Sports Foundation, a trade association for the firearms industry. Shadow Systems and Blue Trail Range Corporation also joined that lawsuit.
The companies argued that allowing a ban on the gun sales to go into effect would hurt their bottom lines.
