AP Photo Two semi-automatic pistols are displayed for a photograph, one with a conversion device installed making it fully automatic, at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), National Services Center, Thursday, March 2, 2023, in Martinsburg, W.Va.

Among the thousands of pages of legislation that comprises the 2026-27 New York budget is a law that bans the sale of pistols that can be converted into automatic weapons.

The legislation, often referred to as the “Glock ban” has been signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul. The language included in the budget bill is similar to S.3559, legislation that was reintroduced in the Senate in 2025 by Sen. Zellnor Myrie, D-New York City. Pistol converters are known as “Glock Switches” because the design of Glock pistols – and other pistols that replicate those designs – makes them uniquely susceptible to this type of illegal conversion. Myrie wrote in his legislative justification that the ban on new sales of Glock pistols would be lifted if the gun manufacturer changes its design so its pistols can’t be converted so easily.

“We outlaw machine guns,” Myrie said on the Senate floor during budget deliberations last week. “That’s already illegal. What this has allowed for is effectively for you to have your own machine gun, with a small device to convert that pistol So this says that if you sell pistols in New York, and if you will have that in the market, you have to take the appropriate steps to allow for that pistol to not be so easily converted.”

Myrie said the bill includes exceptions for those who own a Glock, for gunsmiths or those who have federal firearm licenses and who have them in inventory. Glocks already in the inventory system can be sold, but stores can’t stock new ones.

Senator George Borrello, R-Sunset Bay, was among the lawmakers who debated the bill last week before passage. While Myrie said there are several types of pistols that could be affected, Borrello spoke specifically about the Glock.

“I believe that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle think that’s great, but it’s not going to solve the problem because we failed to address the issue,” Borrello said. “The issue is that people who commit violent acts of crime, with or without a gun, that continue to go unpunished here in New York state. … We have the most gun laws, probably out of any state in the United States, and yet we have some of the worst outcomes when it comes to people that have been tragically injured with or without a gun. Let’s not pretend this bill will do anything. It’s going to appease some people, but at the end of the day it’s not going to do anything until we start doing the right thing, which is to take dangerous people out of society and truly enforce real laws that prevent new victims from being created with or without a firearm.”

Banning Glock switches is nothing new. Through March 2025 more than half of U.S. states had banned the switches. Most of the state laws mimic federal law, which bans machine guns and any parts that can transform semiautomatic weapons into automatic ones.

A Glock Switch is a type of machine gun conversion device. It’s a metal or plastic piece, about the size of a coin, that attaches to the back of a Glock pistol,interfering with a gun’s internal trigger components so that it fires continuously when the trigger is pulled back and held. Conversion devices are also referred to as auto sears, selector switches or chips. Their use has increased over the past 14 years in part because they can be made inexpensively with 3D printers.