Divorce Ends Gun Rights; Accidental Machine Guns GunFax by William E. Miller Oct. 2002 Indiana Gun Shows During the weekend of the 5th & 6th, ProTEQ Firearms Training Academy will open the month with their gun show at the Clay County 4-H fairgrounds in Brazil. On the 12th & 13th, you can visit shows in Fort Wayne at the Memorial Coliseum, in Muncie at the Delaware County Fairgrounds, and in Salem at the Washington County Fairgrounds. South of Louisville, Kentucky, the awesome Knob Creek gun show & machine gun shoot runs the 11th, 12th, and 13th. Call 502-922-4457 or see machinegunshoot.com. The busy weekend of the 19th & 20th features gun shows in Bedford, Crown Point, Evansville, Lafayette, and South Bend. On Saturday at 9am in Bluffton, a private collection of 165 handguns and long guns, knives, accessories, and much more will be sold at an auction at the Wells County 4-H Park. For a full list of sale items, call 260-824-2426 or visit ellenbergerbros.com. You can preview all items from 3-9pm on Friday. The Indy 1500 returns to Indianapolis the 25th, 26th, and 27th, and the Sullivan Conservation Club presents a show on the 26th & 27th at the 4-H Fairgrounds in Sullivan. For one day only on the 26th, Borkholder's Dutch Village in Nappanee will be the scene of a gun show and lots of fun for the whole family, including a huge craft mall, antique mall, flea market, pastry shop, restaurant, and much more. Show information is subject to change. For interactive maps, directions, links to show Web sites, and more of the latest show information, see my Big List of ALL Indiana Gun Shows at gunfax.com/showlist.htm. Divorce Ends Gun Rights? As Rush Limbaugh says, "Words mean things." Without your knowledge, innocent looking words in your old divorce decree may have already brought a permanent end to your gun rights, with the authorities forcing you to surrender your firearms if they ever get wind of it. In Porter County, Indiana, Superior Court Judge Thomas Webber and Magistrate Katherine Forbes discovered this shocking fact while implementing this July's State-ordered changes in the use of protective orders. Common wording - already in use for some time - brings the Federal Brady Law into play, even in divorces where no accusations of threats, abuse, or violence have been alleged. This danger is not limited to Porter County or Indiana. Anyone in any State would be well advised to carefully examine past, present, or future divorce papers for the presence of any clauses restraining the subjects from "harassing, threatening, or stalking". There's no time limit. This situation ticks silently in the backgrounds of many lives right now. You might be illegally in possession of firearms and not even know it. The law is retroactive and permanent unless you can get a court to modify your agreement's wording. Judge Webber is apparently a decent man who doesn't want this prohibition to befall an innocent person in future cases he oversees. The judge has prepared notices he attaches to all applicable divorce agreements, alerting the parties and suggesting safe alternative wording. Judge Webber has sent me these documents, which I've scanned and posted on my Web site at www.gunfax.com/divorce.htm. If you don't have Web access, send me a self-addressed, stamped envelope for a copy. What you don't know really can hurt you! Accidental Machine Guns Occasionally a reader will write to tell me that his rifle or pistol is defective, firing more than one round at a time or even emptying the magazine with only one pull of the trigger. The reader then asks what to do about it. My thoughts are always the same: Without saying another single word about it, take it to a gunsmith! Pronto! Ask him to repair whatever action parts may be broken or worn and have him test fire it when it's been repaired. Why the hush-hush - and the rush? It's because your defective firearm is actually an unregistered machine gun! As Federal law 26USC5845(a) states, "The term 'machinegun' means any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger." The law doesn't address an exemption for defects, so this can be prosecuted as a felony if you happen to show up on their radar screen. When it comes to the law, always remember that it's all in the definitions. Sure enough, words mean things. Sometimes the fewer words, the better! News to Note Uziel Gal, 78, inventor of the Uzi submachine gun, died on September 7th. During its heyday, the Uzi was the largest selling subgun in the western world. With nearly ten million made beginning in the 1950s, the Uzi earned over two billion dollars for Israel. His legend remains. NRA president Charlton Heston has been diagnosed with what appears to be Alzheimer's disease. Our "other president" bravely informed the nation he loves about his tragic condition, which will likely take him slowly away from us. Godspeed, Mr. Heston, and thanks for many years of drama, inspiration, and resolute leadership. On the heels of Heston's moving announcement, the liberal online magazine Slate.com fell under a barrage of thousands of angry messages for its distasteful (and less than accurate) musings about how Heston could be forced by California law to surrender his firearms. My message to them: Get your stinkin' paws off him, you damn, dirty Slate! Coming Up In GunFax I've postponed the discussion of point shooting until next month. Also, I'll be bringing you some surprising evidence of our timeless need for self-defense firearms, even if man's criminal nature were to disappear overnight. Some of our best friends would still represent a deadly threat!