Tuft's attorneys contend that because the gun was equipped with a pistol grip, its sale to someone under 21 violated federal gun laws.As I read the law, an FFL can't sell a PGO shotgun to a customer under 21, but shotgun regs in general are a pretty arcane corner of firearms law (Quick: Name the "evil features" that can make a shotgun non-importable!) so it wouldn't surprise me if the clerk just thought a Mossberg was a Mossberg...
Books. Bikes. Boomsticks.
“I only regret that I have but one face to palm for my country.”
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
When is a shotgun not a shotgun?
The existence of pistol-grip-only shotguns for sale is the topic of much internet and gun store rumor and fabulation, and now it's the keynote in a court case:
Remember, you have the two railroad tracks of federal and state law. This is the Utah Supremes. State law can define a pistol differently than federal law.
ReplyDeleteE.g., the way the General Assembly in Indianapolis has defined handgun means that if your long gun has no stock, it is a pistol via the magic of the legislature.
This was an actual case at the Indiana Court of Appeals: http://caselaw.findlaw.com/in-court-of-appeals/1309626.html
So if you are out toting your pistol-gripped only shotgun on the Monon come July 1st, ensure that you have your pink card.
Shootin' Buddy
And this is why 99.34% of all gun laws are pure bovine excrement and why I argue so strongly against defining a firearm based on a part rather than the sum.
ReplyDeleteI will now hop of my soap box and turn away from the choir.
wait, someone got hits with a pistol grip only shotgun?
ReplyDeleteHeh. Speaking of pistol grip shotguns, I took der kinder and a friend to the outdoor DNR range for fun time and a dude with a pistol grip 12 gauge shows up.
ReplyDeleteHe gives said shotgun to his friend who hold it near his face to see the sights and touches it off.
Blood on idiots is funny...
Yet another innocent falls victim to the labyrinthine web of gun laws and the idiocy that "ignorance of the law is no excuse.*"
ReplyDeleteYet according to the anti-rights crowd, firearms are less regulated than teddy bears.
* Unless, of course, you are one of the ruling elite privileged to enforce those laws against the rabble, in which case it is completely unreasonable to expect you to be familiar with and current on every one of the incredibly vast number of laws currently in existence.
wv: maggie. Seriously, the wv today is a proper name. I've never seen that before.
Heh, I bought one of those tacticool Blackwater Mossbergs, not cos it was PGO, but because of the breaching barrel. In fact, as soon as it arrived via UPS, I installed a folding tailstock, although it still has a pistol grip. Now all I have to do is scare up some breaching rounds.
ReplyDeletewv: hadsidab Sounds all jihaddy, like something they'd make their women wear.
If the ATF goes ahead with their crackdown on "non sporting" shotguns, we're about to see the patchwork of scattergun laws to become even worse.
ReplyDeleteSection 922r doesn't really apply to shotguns, only to rifles, and that means ANY shotgun deemed non sporting could become a Destructive Device with just the stroke of a regulator's pen. In other words, that Mossberg that comes with both a regular and a PGO stock might be legal or NFA regulated, depending on what you put on there.
The insanity never ceases.
So if you are out toting your pistol-gripped only shotgun on the Monon come July 1st, ensure that you have your pink card.
ReplyDeleteThe temptation to do just that is strong...but in the abstract, as I really don't want to be 'that guy'.
And I really, really doubt that 'it's a pistol, technically' will fly with the nice officers I'd be sure to encounter.
Well, I do have the pink card already, but didn't figure to take the thing down the Monon; things don't seem to have got that bad quite yet.
ReplyDeletewv: mennot. Not a Mennonite?
"And I really, really doubt that 'it's a pistol, technically' will fly with the nice officers I'd be sure to encounter."
ReplyDeleteI don't understand.
The pink card is only required for handguns. Rifles and Shotguns can be carried without a pink card in Indiana.
Shootin' Buddy
I don't understand.
ReplyDeleteYeah...neither do I, and I wrote it.
Post-lunch brain fail, obviously.
wv: uriquink. Yep, I am.
Re CCW, do it. But first you need the below, and a form 4.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.andrewsleather.com/firepower.htm
"Section 922r doesn't really apply to shotguns, only to rifles..."
ReplyDeleteYou may want to read 922(r) again.
Anonymous, read it in light of section 921, which lays the sporting purpose test on ANY firearm with a bore of more than a half inch diameter. If it isn't for sporting purposes, according to 921a(4), it's a destructive device. It may be legal to own as far as importability goes, but it's a NFA regulated DD.
ReplyDeleteI was unclear and a little muddled, so I apologize for that, but the upshot is still a problem.
Well, shit. In light of that thought, I'm glad I was well older than 21 before I slapped that pistol grip on my Mossberg 500. (And yes, a few years later after that, I slapped the shoulder stock right back on.)
ReplyDeleteMakes me wonder if I'd have been violating some law, if I'd bought a shotgun at 18, and then put a pistol grip on it, though.
WV: "clamors" -- Damn right.
perlhaqr,
ReplyDelete"Makes me wonder if I'd have been violating some law, if I'd bought a shotgun at 18, and then put a pistol grip on it, though."
Depends.
Most states will allow someone to possess a handgun at 18, but the federal government won't let an FFL transfer a handgun to anyone under 21.
"Name the "evil features" that can make a shotgun non-importable!"
ReplyDeleteA shoulder thing that goes up is the primary problem, I believe.
Prophet,
ReplyDeleteBy that logic, any time a shotgun is modified to a non-sporting configuration, it becomes a DD. Since that obviously isn't the case, I urge you to reconsider repeating baseless fearmongering.
I'd be careful about throwing around the "obviously" there, given the recent flap about ATF's revisiting "sporting purposes."
ReplyDelete