INDIANAPOLIS — Law enforcement officials are cracking down on illegal firearms across Indiana, with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Indiana announcing 11 separate prison sentences and the seizure of 23 "crime guns."
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The cases span from Indianapolis to Evansville. Local and federal law enforcement leaders are teaming up with Indiana's Crime Guns Task Force to target offenders.
"These are bad guys, particularly felons in possession," U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana Tom Wheeler II said. "Those are the people that are likely to use the weapons."
Wheeler noted a worrisome trend regarding the kinds of guns and illegal modifications found in their weapons seizures.
"The machine gun conversion kits are off the charts," Wheeler warned. "When you can go and print these off a 3D printer, anybody can do it. They're not buying them anywhere. They don't have to get anywhere. They just need access to a 3D printer."
"It's not just things that the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office is seeing. Other agencies throughout Hamilton County are encountering people with firearms, juveniles with firearms, and we're seeing an uptick of the switches," Hamilton County Sheriff's Office Chief Deputy John Lowes told WRTV at the time.
"The good news is we're getting a lot of people," Wheeler said. "In fact, the unusual part of a press release like this is we're getting enough people that we kind of have to do a joint or combined press release, and that's a tribute to the success of the team."
Lowes said the end goal remains the same.
"We have to hold them accountable and make sure that people understand they don't want to come here and commit crimes because we want to keep our community safe," Lowes said.
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