Careful Out There

Over at AR15.com, a guy gets into some trouble in Pennsylvania for a non crime:

Told him my .45 is on my hip and my CCW is with my license. He gets me out of the vehicle and takes the pistol to run it to see if it stolen. I am thinking no problem I have had this pistol since 88. Bought it in CA from a buddy in the Marines. The weapon comes back with no history in fact after a four hours search ATF can not find any weapons in my name. They want to know why it is not registered in PA. Told him when I moved to PA, I asked Chester County Sheriff if I had to register my pistols in PA since I bought them in CA. He said no they are in the system.

This wasn’t a lawful seizure.  The course of action here would be to retain an attorney, and file suit to get the firearm returned.  Under Pennsylvania law, the state is required to pay attorneys fees for a gun owner who has to file suit to get an unlawfully held firearm returned to him.

Under Pennsylvania law, there also isn’t supposed to be a registry of firearms, but the State Police has been maintaining one “illegally”, well, it used to be illegally, until the PA Supreme Court essentially read the registration prohibition right out of the Uniform Firearms Act and said the registry was a “record of sale” rather than what it actually is.

So it would appear because this officer wasn’t able to find the gun in the registry, he presumed it was illegal, and seized it.   We need a legislative fix for this in Pennsylvania, and it needs to come soon.  Unfortunately, there’s no chance that we’ll be able to get this through our current Governor.

3 thoughts on “Careful Out There”

  1. “So it would appear because this officer wasn’t able to find the gun in the registry, he presumed it was illegal, and seized it. We need a legislative fix for this in Pennsylvania, and it needs to come soon.”

    Sounds more like the officer has his head up his ass, and the only fix needed is to pull it out.

  2. So lack of evidence of crime is now proof of illegality? Time to hand them their asses.

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