Indianapolis advances anti-gun ordinance

AP Photo/Lisa Marie Pane

The city of Indianapolis is one of those cities that wishes it could overpower the rest of the state. While Chicago and New York City pretty much dictate the state’s politics, that’s not true everywhere.

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Indianapolis is kind of shut out.

That hasn’t stopped them from trying to do some stuff that is completely unenforceable, though.

The Indianapolis City-County Council’s Public Safety and Criminal Justice Committee advanced a gun control ordinance that some are saying is “unenforceable.”

The ordinance would raise the age to buy a gun in Marion County from 18 to 21, end permitless carry in the county, and ban many types of what the council calls “semiautomatic assault weapons,” including:

  • Certain types of semiautomatic rifles, pistols, and shotguns
  • Shotguns with revolving cylinders
  • All AK-type and AR-type rifles and pistols
  • All IZHMASH Saiga 12 type shotguns
  • All belt-fed semiautomatic firearms

“To take effect, if and only if, the legal hurdle to their enforcement was to go away,” said Corporation Counsel member Matt Giffin.

Unfortunately for them, preemption is the law in Indiana. What’s more, while plenty of folks in local government may want to repeal it, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of political will elsewhere in the state.

Which is fine, because Indianapolis’s problems have nothing to do with a lack of gun control.

Look, let’s address each piece for a second.

Raising the age to buy a gun to 21

This is a popular one with many anti-gunners, and I get it. Studies show brains haven’t fully developed until someone turns 25, making them more inclined toward irrational actions.

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However, 18-year-olds are lawful adults. They’re old enough to vote, marry, sign contracts, take on debt, enlist in the military, and a host of other things that require rationality.

What’s more, we have people under the age of 18 getting guns in our inner cities, including in Indianapolis. Changing the age limit won’t stop bad actors from getting guns. It’ll just stop law-abiding adults over the age of 18 but under the age of 21 from getting them for self-defense.

End permitless carry in the county

Criminals don’t get permits. This just impacts law-abiding citizens and puts them at a disadvantage against the bad guys.

What’s more, it’ll keep a lot of people from visiting the city, which may well impact the city’s economy.

Meanwhile, bad guys will keep running and gunning through the streets because there’s literally no way to stop them from doing it when you’re focused on the wrong people.

Ban assault weapons

So-called assault weapons are the big bugaboo for a lot of anti-gunners, and officials in Indianapolis have bought into this completely, it seems.

However, we need to remember that while these kinds of firearms make the headlines, they’re actually used in only a small portion of crimes.

In other words, such a ban won’t actually do anything to reduce crime in the city. What it will do, though, is make it harder for law-abiding citizens who like to use these kinds of rifles for self-defense or competition.

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As you can see, there are reasons against passing any of these laws, but there’s something else.

It’s always amusing how anti-gun voices, like those in Indianapolis, want local authorities to pass laws like this, but literally never the other way around. They freak out over the idea of a small town somewhere else deciding universal background checks aren’t needed in their little corner of the world.

It’s a profound hypocrisy among the gun control crowd, this idea that local authority is needed when they really just want the opportunity to put as many people under as much gun control as possible. It has nothing to do with local needs and everything to do with creating as much of an infringement on the Second Amendment as possible.

This is just more of that.

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