Attorney General William Tong warned Southport-based firearms manufacturer Sturm, Ruger & Co. on Monday that it could face legal action over semi-automatic pistols that can be converted into fully automatic weapons.
In a letter to the company, Tong said he was disturbed that Ruger markets its RXM pistol as compatible with “virtually all Glock accessories,” touting that “most major components are designed for [Glock] Gen 3 compatibility with off-the-shelf parts, holsters and accessories for nearly unlimited customization.”
“If the RXM can be easily converted to a machine gun by the attachment of an MCD, and videos my Office has seen indicate that it can, Ruger’s pursuit of profits over safety may be in violation of FIRA and CUTPA,” Tong wrote, referring to the Connecticut Firearms Industry Responsibility Act and the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act.
MCD stands for machine gun conversion device.
The warning comes after the national gun safety advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety sent a letter to Ruger on Nov. 3, urging the company to pull the RXM from the market. Tong’s letter cites the Everytown correspondence, which detailed how Ruger introduced the RXM in December 2024 as a collaboration with Magpul Industries specifically designed to mimic Glock’s Gen 3 pistols.
Ruger launched the RXM years after the national crisis of pistol conversions became widely known. Nationwide, machine gun conversion device recoveries increased 784% from 2019 to 2023, according to federal data cited by Everytown.
The devices enable pistols to fire up to 1,200 rounds per minute. The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives traced 31 such devices in Connecticut in 2023, while Hartford police reported recovering 53 conversion devices that year, according to Everytown’s data.
After Glock announced in October it would redesign its pistols to prevent easy conversion, social media users immediately predicted the RXM would fill the void. “Looks like the RXM is [going to] take over the market,” one commenter wrote, according to Everytown. Another stated: “Ruger coming in hot. Just in time to scoop up all those Glock sales.”
Tong cited multiple violent incidents in Connecticut involving the devices, including a 2023 double homicide in Hartford.
“Right here in Connecticut, a home state that I share with Ruger, MCDs helped attackers conduct an ambush, murdering two on a house front porch a mere two miles from my Office in Hartford,” he wrote.
In 2024, a 20-year-old mother and her four-month-old son were killed in Hartford by a man using a pistol equipped with a conversion device.
“Despite the current lawsuits against Glock, you continue to market and sell the RXM, increasing your production and sales overall, distributing an enormous quantity of handguns designed for unlimited customization, and incentivizing their conversion to concealed machine guns,” Tong wrote in the letter to Ruger General Counsel Sarah Colbert.
Several jurisdictions have sued Austria-based Glock over similar design issues, and courts in Chicago, Minnesota and New Jersey have denied Glock’s motions to dismiss those cases. Glock has reportedly announced it will discontinue certain pistol models and modify new models to make conversion more difficult.
In Connecticut, the Firearms Industry Responsibility Act, enacted this year, allows the attorney general’s office to bring civil enforcement actions against gun manufacturers that fail to prevent sales to prohibited individuals or that sell products “designed in a manner that is reasonably foreseeable to promote conversion of a legal firearm into an illegal firearm.” Violations could result in injunctive relief, punitive damages and attorneys’ fees.
Further, courts can impose penalties up to $5,000 per willful violation of the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act.
Tong requested a statement from Ruger regarding its plans for the RXM pistol and ordered the company to preserve documents related to conversions, violent crimes involving converted weapons, marketing materials, financial information and the company’s awareness of its legal responsibilities.
