2024 legislative session sees new raft of gun-related bills
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With the 2024 Indiana legislative session underway, lawmakers have proposed an array of bills dealing with guns, including one that would quash the city of Gary’s legal battle against gun manufacturers that it launched in 1999.
The bill, authored by State Rep. Chris Jeter, R-Fishers, would bar any government entity in Indiana other than the state itself from suing a gun manufacturer or other industry business in most cases.
The legislation would remove the city of Gary’s ability to continue a nearly quarter century long legal case against gun manufacturers. The city alleged that negligent conduct by the businesses fuels the criminal gun market and violence. In June, a judge issued a ruling allowing the city to subpoena records from local gun shops in an effort to assess the movement of weapons as it relates to violence crime. The next court hearing in the case is set for Jan. 16.
Tanya Schardt, senior counsel and director of state and federal policy at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which has represented the city in the case, criticized Jeter’s bill as an elected official doing “the bidding of the gun industry.”
She noted that Indiana law already protects firearm businesses from legal liability in many cases, including lawsuits stemming from the criminal misuse of a firearm by a third party.
“Why does a gun industry think that it shouldn’t be held responsible when it engages in dangerous responsible behavior that results in harm to people or communities?” she said.
Jeter did not return a request for comment.
Any significant gun control legislation faces an uphill battle at the Indiana Statehouse, where Republicans hold supermajorities in both houses of the legislature.
Rep. Sue Errington, D-Muncie, filed a bill that would bar Hoosiers under 21 from purchasing a firearm. She acknowledged that getting traction with the legislation will be difficult.
“But I think things are changing out there in the world, even in Indiana. We’re seeing more and more acts of gun violence,” she told the Post-Tribune. “I think that the public is waking up, you know, it’s a dangerous situation.”
Errington pointed to a mass shooting in July that killed one and injured 19 at a street party in Muncie as part of her motivation for seeking a minimum purchasing age, a proposal that has failed in Indianapolis during past legislative sessions.
Sen. Lonnie Randolph, D-East Chicago, filed a bill similar to Errington’s as well as a new version of legislation that would ban firearms from polling places. As evidence of need for the latter, he pointed to an election day incident in November in which a man allegedly used a firearm to intimidate people voting at a Munster elementary school.
“That is a very intimidating tactic, to have a gun in a polling place,” he said. “I think we need to wake up. As a city, as a state, as a county.”
Randolph said he has yet to see meaningful GOP interest in what he termed “common sense” gun legislation, but hopes that will eventually change.
Democratic legislators from Indianapolis, which saw record high number of youth homicides in 2023 even as total number of homicides declined, have proposed a variety of ambitious new regulations on gun ownership. State Sen. Andrea Hunley, D-Indianapolis, authored a bill that would require background checks for the sale of firearms between individuals. State Rep. Mitch Gore’s bill would require gun owners who live with children to securely store their firearms.
Sen. Fady Qaddoura, D-Indianapolis, has proposed legislation allowing county and municipal governments to adopt their own gun control measures, including a background check requirement, a minimum purchasing age, or a safe storage mandate. Indiana currently bars local governments from regulating “firearms, ammunition, and firearm accessories,” “the ownership, possession, carrying, transportation, registration, transfer, and storage of firearms, ammunition, and firearm accessories,” and “commerce in and taxation of firearms, firearm ammunition, and firearm accessories.”
State law also blocks the use of public funds for gun buybacks, a fact that some local leaders have lamented. In the wake of three children being killed when they grabbed unsecured firearms, the Gary Police held two gun turn-in events in December that collected just seven firearms and two BB guns from residents, according to a department spokesperson. The total number of firearms in the city is unknown. While the events’ organizers stressed that any number of guns taken out of circulation would amount to a success, they said that state gun laws pose a barrier to the city’s violence prevention efforts.
While Schardt, like Randolph and Errington, is generally pessimistic about this the prospect of this session’s gun control bills, she sees some cause for optimism in a bill authored by State Rep. Jim Lucas, R-Seymour. The legislation would grant Hoosiers a tax credit of up to $300 toward the purchase of a safe, lockbox or other safe storage device for firearms. A similar bill was passed by the Virginia state legislature with bipartisan support last year.
“In a context where we weren’t necessarily able to ban assault weapons or restrict access to those under the age of 21 or past a safe storage mandate, providing a tax credit for safe storage devices is still a really important step forward,” she said.
Post-Tribune reporters Carole Carlson and Meredith Colias-Pete contributed.
