Legislative Round-Up (2)

John Dillinger may be completely dead at last -- there's a Senate Bill to make Indiana's short shotgun laws compatible with Federal limits. (So-called "sawed-off" shotguns have strict length limits -- and a number of ways to be Federal-crime wrong -- per bATFe; Indiana just bans 'em, period. 'Cos Dillinger used one, way back when, see? Can't have that kinda thing, see? --Of course, he stole machine guns from police stations, too, and yet the police still keep fully-automatic weapons handy). It'll be interesting to see if this gets out of committee. (I think these firearms were the Taurus Judge of their time -- and still are. Take that as you will.)

They're looking to make it a misdemeanor (Class A) rather than a felony (Class D) to unlawfully possess a firearm on school property -- this is kind of a "little Jimmy gets to be an idiot once" revision and also makes it clear that if you may legally have a firearm, are not a student at the school, and have it locked up and out of sight in your car, you're not breaking the law. --Mind you, even a misdemeanor is no walk in the park and there's very harsh stuff waiting in the wings for anything more than mere "possession," so this looks like a decent change to the law. Dads, if you follow the rules, you can pick up the kids for deer-hunting without risking prison time and loss of your right to vote. SB 0180.

Another Senate Bill (0181) extends State firearms-law preemption to its own agencies! Appears to include State Universities. This may be hard-fought and anyone who is thinking "anarchy" probably should review State laws concerning who can be carrying what, where; they're plenty clear and this simply makes the rules the same everywhere. (Increasingly around here, in .gov places Indiana restricts carrying weapons, they put up metal detectors and X-ray screening. Oh, I don't much like it -- but I dislike the "honor system" even more. At least real screening disarms the law-abiding and scofflaws alike.)

The House has nothing much about things that go boom (other than Right-To-Work arguments!); looks like they are hoping to ease up even more on small brewers: I'm told we're makin' pretty good beer around here and even the Legislature notices. (Do you think enough beer could ease things on the R-T-W divide? Yeah, me neither; they'd just drink it and fight one another with the empty bottles.)

The whole list is here. Enjoy! (Enjoy? This really looks to be another hair-pulling-arguments kind of session; but better that than some buddy-buddy snarfing from the public trough).