INDIANAPOLIS — No matter what limitations Indiana towns and cities put on businesses while the coronavirus pandemic spreads across the state, they won’t be able to regulate whether Hoosiers can buy guns and ammunition.
Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill issued an opinion Thursday, clarifying and explaining Indiana law on the matter. Hill received questions from Sens. Jim Buck, Aaron Freeman and Jim Tomes. They said an Indiana county asked gun stores to close their doors during the public health emergency from the coronavirus outbreak.
Indiana units of local government can restrict some businesses from opening during times of emergency, but not gun or ammunition stores.
“Year after year, Indiana’s lawmakers have recognized the paramount importance of Hoosiers’ right to bear arms,” Hill said in a release. “We’re talking about a liberty so cherished as to be enshrined in the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.”
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Gov. Eric Holcomb’s executive order also classified “firearm and ammunition suppliers and retailers for purposes of safety and security” as an essential business or operation.
