STATEHOUSE – On Tuesday, the Indiana House of Representatives passed House Bill 1365 to criminalize machine-gun conversion devices.
The machine-gun conversion devices, commonly known as switches and auto sears, turn handguns into fully automatic machine guns.
House Bill 1365 authored by Rep. Mitch Gore states:
Machine guns. Revises, for purposes of enhancement and certain criminal offenses, a definition of “machine gun”. Provides that particular criminal offenses concerning machine guns shall not be construed to apply to persons possessing machine guns or other items not required to be registered in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record maintained by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Makes a conforming amendment.
The Corrections and Criminal Law Senate Committee on Tuesday passed Senate Bill 343.
Senate Bill 343 authored by Sen. Aaron Freeman states:
Requires online marketplaces to collect and verify certain information about high volume, third party sellers in the marketplaces and provide that information to consumers in the marketplaces. Makes it organized retail theft, a Level 6 felony, for a person to knowingly: (1) take, procure, receive, conceal, or otherwise exercise control over merchandise of a retail merchant; or (2) use an artifice, an instrument, a container, a device, or another article to facilitate taking, procuring, receiving, concealing, or exercising control over merchandise of a retail merchant; without the consent of the retail merchant or without paying the appropriate consideration for the merchandise, and with the intent to sell, deliver, or distribute the merchandise to another person, and increases the penalty under certain circumstances. Provides that the violation of a community corrections home detention placement term constitutes the crime of escape under certain circumstances. Permits a person to petition for expungement of an arrest if no charges have been filed within one year of the arrest. (Under current law, the arrest is expunged without a petition after 180 days.) Allows disclosure of expunged records to a school in connection with the employment of a person likely to have contact with a student. Repeals the requirement that certain acts taken by a prosecuting attorney are invalid without a seal. Revises, for purposes of an enhancement and certain criminal offenses, a definition of “machine gun” to include a particular part or combination of parts designed and intended for use in converting a weapon into a weapon that fires automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger. Modifies a separate definition of “machine gun.”
The bill in the Senate would make possession of the device itself a felony in Indiana, which it currently is not unless it’s already attached to the gun. The House bill would do the same.
Chris Bailey, assistant chief of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, testified in the Senate committee meeting about the dangerous trends the department sees with devices that turn a handgun into a machine gun.
“We routinely identify both teenagers and adults producing these devices at home using 3D printers, and then selling these same devices to our kids and violent offenders,” he told the Committee.
According to Bailey, 1 of every 6 guns taken off the streets by IMPD and used in 2022 in crimes had a machine-gun conversion device on them.
Bailey also gave further evidence of why the devices are so dangerous on the streets. “It is a common occurrence for Indianapolis police officers to recover 50 to 100 fired cartage casings in a single firearms-related, violent incident in our neighborhoods.”
