SACRAMENTO, Cal. - Today, Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund launched the updated "Gun Law Rankings" for 2026, an online tool and website that ranks all 50 states based on the strength of their gun laws and catalogs gun safety laws state by state. This year, Everytown's state gun law rankings also shows whether states' rankings increased or decreased over the past year, reflecting action to pass common-sense gun safety policies or gun-lobby backed dangerous measures, like permitless carry. Everytown's analysis found that California once again ranks first in the nation for its comprehensive gun laws.

In 2025, California took a bold step toward ending the proliferation of illegal machine gun conversions by targeting the root cause: the specific firearm designs that allow these weapons to be so easily modified. While the conversion devices themselves were already illegal, lawmakers recognized that certain pistols were manufactured with a unique vulnerability. By prohibiting the sale of these 'convertible firearms,' California is the first state to hold the industry accountable for engineering choices that allow a $25 attachment to turn a handgun into a weapon of war.

"Several gun manufacturers have known that their handguns are dangerously susceptible to being converted into automatic weapons with Glock switches, and for too long they turned a blind eye," said Sharon Genkin, a volunteer with the California chapter of Moms Demand Action. "By requiring gun makers to fix the design flaws that allow the spread of illegal machine gun conversions onto our streets, California lawmakers took a critical step forward in making our communities safer. This kind of innovation and leadership is exactly why California continues to have the strongest gun laws in the nation."

"When gun violence is the leading cause of death for my generation, we can't afford to let the gun industry ignore how their products are being exploited to further this crisis," said Sophia Adkins, a volunteer with Students Demand Action UCLA. "California has long been a national leader in gun violence prevention, and by becoming the first state to target the engineering at the heart of the machine gun conversion threat, our lawmakers have only solidified that legacy."