Weapons: Owning firearms when young.

[akodo]

this came up as an asside in another topic.

Ineligible Persons

The following classes of people are ineligible to possess, receive, ship, or transport firearms or ammunition:

* Those convicted of crimes punishable by imprisonment for over one year, except state misdemeanors punishable by two years or less.
* Fugitives from justice.
* Unlawful users of certain depressant, narcotic, or stimulant drugs.
* Those adjudicated as mental defectives or incompetents or those committed to any mental institution.
* Illegal aliens.
* Citizens who have renounced their citizenship.
* Those persons dishonorably discharged from the Armed Forces.
* Persons less than 18 years of age for the purchase of a shotgun or rifle.
* Persons less than 21 years of age for the purchase of a firearm that is other than a shotgun or rifle.
* Persons subject to a court order that restrains such persons from harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner.
* Persons convicted in any court of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence.

Note the two age restriction clauses, which i bolded for you. Note that these two restrictions specifically spell out 'purchase'

Now, my understanding is that someone less than 18 years old cannot PURCHASE a gun. However, they can be gifted a firearm, and transport a firearm. In fact, my hunting regs book addresses at what age you can hunt without a parent/guardian/adult present. You can do this at under the age of 18. A 16 year old can legally posess and transport a shotgun out to the fields to bag some pheasant, irrelevant of it is his 12 guage from Xmas last year, or his dad's gun.

Thats why those two age restriction clauses only mention PURCHASE, and thats why none of the other restrictions specifically spell out PURCHASE.

When reading such regulations it is my understanding that the heading will list the restrictions, all of which will apply to X classes of individuals (in this case "ineligible to possess, receive, ship, or transport firearms or ammunition" so they don't have to repeat that phrase for each class. However, when listing classes that fall under the above restriction, if only some or part of the restrictions are relisted, the only those RELISTED restrictions applies to that class.

Now, I am not a Lawyer, but that is my understanding of the law. It is also the understanding of my firearms safety instructor.

The questions you have to ask yourself are
1- why aren't ALL restrictions restated for this class
2- why isn't the restriciton to purchase restated for ALL classes.

thats because for those classes where some restrictions are restated only the specific restriciton mentioned for that class applies.

[GoatChomper]

The questions you have to ask yourself are
1- why aren't ALL restrictions restated for this class
2- why isn't the restriciton to purchase restated for ALL classes.
Because people are imperfect, lawyers less so, and legislators (who are mostly lawyers) least of all.....hence imperfectly-written laws.

[[Political] Slayer]

In my state, 16 year olds can buy rifles and shotguns from a private dealer, ie my dad, or my neighbor, and 18 can buy pistols from private dealer.

[Gumpokc]

Slayer']In my state, 16 year olds can buy rifles and shotguns from a private dealer, ie my dad, or my neighbor, and 18 can buy pistols from private dealer.


Not legally they can't

Sure it may happen, and we all know stuff goes on under the table all the time.

The info posted in the first post, is federal law, especially in the case of firearms, states cannot do anything "less" that what federal law dictates.
They can add to it, but they can't substract from it. (actually they technically can, but not without suffering federal sanctions across the board, which is why on most issues the states defer to federal)

Fed laws says 18 for shotguns and rifle, 21 for handgun, so it doesn't matter what you see or hear, if it doesn't meet those age restrictions, it technically is not legal, and if they want too, and can prove it, they can have your ass for it.

Sure your dad or you might buy a handgun from your uncle (example) and your 16, but if soemthing happens, say the pistol is stolen, their goign to track is back to your uncle, not to you. If he claims he sold it to you at that time, and your underage, they will file a firearms offense on him for selling a firearm to an underage indivigual.

Yeah we all know it happens, but just because it happens, and everyone knows it, that doesn't make it legal.

[akodo]

i swore i made this reply, the damned internet fairies must have eaten it.

One thing i learned in my activities and exposure to MN concealed carry reform is how judges interpret laws. Here in MN we got a CC law passed as a rider on a DNR law. Some liberals got a pocket judge to declare it unconstitutional due to it being unrelated to the rest of the bill. (at one time the DNR saftey certificate was going to be sufficient training, but that got scrapped, hence the connection to the rest of the DNR bill was lost) Of course, the only reason it was a rider bill was because it couldn't get out of committee due to the democrats playing tricks. (One time when it was scheduled to come up for vote, and the demos didn't have enough votes to stop it, the leadership told the demos to just leave because if enough left there wouldn't be enough committee members present to hold said vote)

So it was knocked down. Next session the legislature passed the CC law as a standalone bit of legislation. The one change they made was that before, you couldn't get in trouble for being in a business that wanted to ban CC weapons unless they posted signs at all entrances and notified you verbally (in case you missed the signs) The problem was if a store owner decided he didn't want you and your CC weapon in the store, but was not posted, he could notifiy you verbally, but you needed both elements. (i guess the legislature hadn't thought of the few times this kind of situation would come up, but standard tresspass laws would apply) Hence they changed the law slightly. However, due to a somewhat ambigous word and poor structuring, the bill COULD be read as to STILL require both signeage and verbal warning. However our in house lawyers told us that wouldn't hold water. (The reason this came up is there are places that are posting that shouldn't be able to. The law states that the renter of a building or whatever, not the landlord, gets to decide if he allows weapons in. Hence if Conservative Pete the Barber rents his building from Old Mrs. Blackberry the liberal, she cannot tack up signs barring cc. However, the Mall of America, which we view as a landlord because the individual stores inside must pay rent, posts signs banning concealed carry. We claim those signs aren't legally binding as the MOA doesn't have the right to post them. If an individual store inside the mall posts, fine, but MOA cannot make that decision for all of them)

ANYWAYS, the lawyers in the group tell us judges view such problems in the law as such. They attempt to determine the INTENT of the legislatures who crafted the law even if the law itself is unclear or self contradictoy (<---very common). The main concept applied to our law was basically 'okay, the legislature made these changes, but ended up with a law that was exactly the same as before, so WHY did they make those changes in the first place. Clearly they made those changes in attempt to modify the existing law.

Using the same concept a judge would ask 1)Why isn't the restriction on purchase repeated for ALL classes of prohibited individuals, and 2)why are restrictions restated for only SOME classes of prohibited individuals.

The answer is that those classes are different than the others. Hence the legislation has been interpreted to mean 17 year olds may possess but not buy.

As a side note. While parrusing the NRA-ILA sight on an unrelated topic in discussing a theoretical felon who was gunrunning, they note that the definition of 'possess' as in a felon may not possess a firearm counts simply touching the weapon, let alone being the owner. Clearly with that definition of possession, if ALL the restrictions (possess, receive, ship, or transport firearms or ammunition) applied to less than 18 for rifles and -21 for handguns then simply touching a gun when oyu are under age would be a crime. Clearly that is not the case.

You may legally possess, recieve, ship, and transport a rifle if oyu are less than18, and a handgun if oyu are -21, you simply cannot purchase one.

[GoatChomper]

i swore i made this reply, the damned internet fairies must have eaten it.
Must have.....there have been no deletions so far.
As a side note. While parrusing the NRA-ILA sight on an unrelated topic in discussing a theoretical felon who was gunrunning, they note that the definition of 'possess' as in a felon may not possess a firearm counts simply touching the weapon, let alone being the owner.
More than one parolee has come to grief exactly that way in Texas.....their parole officer notices that the explicit text of state law forbids their having a firearm in their posession away from their property and tells them they can have a firearm for hunting or home defense, and then BATF comes to take the parolee away.