The change in the law goes into effect on July 1 under a bill approved earlier this year by state lawmakers, allowing the manufacture, selling or ownership of shotguns with barrels 18 inches long or less.
The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Jim Tomes, R-Wadesville, said the change in the state’s law would bring Indiana into line with federal regulations allowing ownership of sawed-off shotguns by those people who pass checks for permits from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
According to the federal firearms laws, it is illegal to knowingly possess or manufacture a sawed-off shotgun with a barrel length of less than 18 inches or overall length less than 26 inches.
“You can saw off the barrel, but you’ll spend 10 years in a federal penitentiary doing that,” Tomes told WRTV. “These guns are manufactured by licensed manufacturers and they’re under heavy regulations.”
Manufactured sawed-off shotguns can be expensive to buy and are usually owned by gun collectors, according to Tomes. But DIYers better not try to pass a homemade sawed-off shotgun off as manufactured because the regulations are quite specific.
ABCNews is reporting that according to Indiana’s nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency, only one person received a prison sentence pertaining to a sawed-off shotgun charge during 2012 and 2013.
Leaders in the Indiana Chapter for Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America didn’t oppose the repeal of the sawed-off shotgun ban, but were more concerned over the proposals for repealing the state laws for handgun licensing and allowing colleges to impose campus bans on firearms. Both of those measures failed to advance in the legislature.
