The National Shooting Sports Foundation has taken Connecticut to federal court. NSSF filed a lawsuit and a motion for a preliminary injunction to stop the state's October 1 ban on cruciform-trigger, striker-fired pistols—the most common handguns sold in America. The trade group argues the prohibition is unconstitutional and is asking a court to freeze it before the statute takes effect.
Striker-fired pistols with cruciform triggers are not boutique hardware. They are the dominant design on dealer shelves and in holsters across the country. Connecticut's ban would treat that ordinary, lawfully owned class of handguns as contraband on a fixed calendar date. NSSF is moving now so that federal judges, not a state effective-date clock, decide whether those arms remain available to the people of Connecticut.
The filing is a direct challenge, not a request for delay as a courtesy. A preliminary injunction is the tool that keeps a law from operating while the court tests it against the Constitution. NSSF is asking the court to use that tool before October 1. If the injunction issues, the ban does not land. If it does not, the prohibition takes effect and the most common handguns in the American market become illegal to sell in the state under this new rule.
Connecticut's Attorney General has already spoken publicly in connection with related Glock litigation. That political posture does not rewrite the Second Amendment. The right to keep and bear arms is not a privilege the General Assembly may ration by firing mechanism. A statute that singles out the pistols Americans actually buy and carry is a ban on common arms, whatever label Hartford puts on the trigger geometry.
Constitution First, Statute Second
NSSF represents the firearm industry that manufactures, distributes, and sells these pistols. The lawsuit puts that industry, and the customers it serves, in front of a federal court before the ban's effective date. The claim is straightforward: the prohibition cannot stand because it is unconstitutional. The requested relief is equally straightforward: freeze the ban so Connecticut cannot enforce it on October 1.
State officials swear an oath to the Constitution of the United States. That oath outranks a state firearms statute. When a legislature outlaws the most common handguns sold in America, the courts are the remaining check. NSSF has put the question there—federal lawsuit, preliminary-injunction motion, October 1 deadline. What happens next is a judicial decision on whether Connecticut may strip its residents of the pistols that define the modern civilian market, or whether the Constitution still controls the statute.
References
- https://www.nssf.org/articles/nssf-challenges-connecticuts-unconstitutional-ban-on-popular-striker-fired-handguns/
- https://www.nssf.org/articles/nssf-will-challenge-connecticuts-unconstitutional-ban-on-popular-striker-fired-handguns/
- https://portal.ct.gov/ag/press-releases/2026-press-releases/attorney-general-tong-statement-regarding-glock-lawsuit