CCW question re: legal residency

[xrMike]

Let's say your primary residence is in an "Impossible to Obtain" county like Santa Clara, or San Benito, or one of those other "red" counties as shown on the CA map at packing.org.

You buy a 2nd home in a "Shall Issue" county, a green county on the map, like say in Calaveras or some county like that.

The 2nd house will serve as a vacation home (so 99% of your time is spent at the primary).

Is there any possible way (creative, but not fraudulent) to apply for a CCW in the county where the 2nd home is?

[Rob P.]

The easiest and most legal way would be move to the vacation home and establish legal residency there.

Any other way is an attempt to curcumvent the law.

BTW, if you DO establish residency it cannot be a sham residency where you again move back to your prior residence immediately after obtaining the permit. If you move you will have to apply with the current county of residence to obtain a new CCW permit in that county.

[tango-52]

No, it must be your primary place of residence. You don't want to play games on this one. Lying on applications and certifications to a government agency is a felony. PC115.

[xrMike]

You guys are telling me exactly what I expected to hear.

I was hoping somebody knew of a strategy that utilized creativity-without-duplicity, but ah well, that would be too good to be true I guess.

[CCWFacts]

If you have a vacation home, you might have two locations that qualify as your residence. In that case, pick one, register to vote there, have your DL go there, have all your mail go there, etc.

To qualify as a residence, the following points should all check out:

1. You have 24 hour, 365 days a year access. So a place that is rented out to someone else does not qualify.

2. There's no rental agreement renting the place to someone else.

3. It functions as a home: bed, kitchen, bathroom

4. It is an active home: milk in the fridge, utilities show some level of use (hello Ed Jew!), you have possessions there

5. You spend some amount of your time there: a couple months a year, one or two weekends a month, etc

6. You don't have minor children in school somewhere else.

7. The place is zoned as a residence. You might have a garden shed in some county, which might have a bed and a bathroom in it even, but it's not zoned and permitted as a residence.

The people who most often have two locations that are legitimate residences are college students, because they have an apartment near college, and they still live at home. For example, a student who goes to school in SF but whose family lives in OC would definitely want OC to be his legal place of residence. Provided, of course, that he does reside there for a couple months out of the year, etc.

So there are some legitimate situations where a person has more than one location which is a residence, and gets to pick and choose which one is his legal residence.

The place where people get in trouble is they have a rental property in some other county, and they said, "that place I'm renting to someone else is my residence." Wrong! Doesn't meet the tests I listed. Or they say, "there's a garden shed on that property which is my residence." Wrong! A garden shed is not a residence.

[CCWFacts]

No, it must be your primary place of residence. You don't want to play games on this one. Lying on applications and certifications to a government agency is a felony. PC115.

Are you sure? CPC 12051: (D) (b)


(D) The standard application form described in subparagraph (A)
is deemed to be a local form expressly exempt from the
requirements of the Administrative Procedures Act, Chapter 3.5
(commencing with Section 11340) of Part 1 of Division 3 of Title 2
of the Government Code.
(b) Any person who files an application required by subdivision
(a) knowing that statements contained therein are false is guilty
of a misdemeanor.
(c) Any person who knowingly makes a false statement on the
application regarding any of the following shall be guilty of a felony:
(lying about criminal record, etc, but not about residence)


Note that I recommend complete honesty in every part of the application, whether it's a felony or a misdemeanor.

[xrMike]

Thanks for responding CCWFacts. You have given me some hope!

In your list of conditions, all of them are currently met in my situation except for #6. I've got a few more years to go before that one turns favorable.

[CCWFacts]

Thanks for responding CCWFacts. You have given me some hope!

In your list of conditions, all of them are currently met in my situation except for #6. I've got a few more years to go before that one turns favorable.

#6 is the kicker. Really hard to claim that you live > 100 miles away from where your minor children are going to school, unless it's Hogwarts. Of course sheriffs have flexibility in that; Sheriff Baca issued a permit to someone who lives in Nevada and has minor children in school in Nevada. But that's Sheriff Baca.

Note that my list is not a legal definition. I'm just listing all the common-sense criteria that would go into creating a fact of residence in some location. Anyone who meets all those things has a very solid claim to being a resident of that location. Some sheriffs may want to check off all those things if they have any doubts, or as a routine matter. Other sheriffs may not pay much attention. I have heard that in some counties, if they have any shadow of a doubt, they send a car by the claimed residence at night to see if the applicant's car is parked there. They can also ask neighbors.

Read the current news stories about Ed Jew for a story about someone who made some claims about residence and is getting in a lot of trouble for it. He was an idiot. He claimed residence in a house which had no active utilities. His claim of residence was false without even needing to investigate the other things. Oh and his wife was a resident of another city and I think he had minor children in school in that other city.

[tango-52]

I'm sure this isn't the only instance where parts of the CA Penal Code are in conflitc. Here is PC 115(a):
115. (a) Every person who knowingly procures or offers any false or
forged instrument to be filed, registered, or recorded in any public
office within this state, which instrument, if genuine, might be
filed, registered, or recorded under any law of this state or of the
United States, is guilty of a felony.

I certainly don't want to test which would win out.

[CCWFacts]

I'm sure this isn't the only instance where parts of the CA Penal Code are in conflitc. Here is PC 115(a):
115. (a) Every person who knowingly procures or offers any false or
forged instrument to be filed, registered, or recorded in any public
office within this state, which instrument, if genuine, might be
filed, registered, or recorded under any law of this state or of the
United States, is guilty of a felony.

Is a CCW application an "instrument"? I haven't looked at the rest of that section to see how instrument is defined. Anyway, it doesn't matter because...

I certainly don't want to test which would win out.

Exactly.

[Glock22Fan]

This is not the first time this sort of thing has been suggested, and we deal with it at length at californiaconcealedcarry.com and in a recent article in the CRPA newsletter.

Our advice is that you don't try to play games in this area. Your residence is the place where you mostly sleep, or where your family (or belongings, if you have no family) mostly sleeps and you go back there at weekends/holidays/vacations. If you live in hotels/ lodging during the week to avoid the commute, or because you are a student and college is too far from home, then it is legitimate to use your home base.

Using something that's clearly a vacation cabin is likely to backfire on you.

And so is a bunch of people sharing the rent on some shack in the middle of nowhere and each claiming that that is their residence. It's been done before. In really rural areas, the sheriff might well have someone drop by and check it out. It's happened before, but I don't remember details, and I'm sure it will happen again.

Not advisable, unless you want to lose your CCW rights for a very long time.

[CCWFacts]

And so is a bunch of people sharing the rent on some shack in the middle of nowhere and each claiming that that is their residence. It's been done before. In really rural areas, the sheriff might well have someone drop by and check it out. It's happened before, but I don't remember details, and I'm sure it will happen again.

Yes, everyone gets this kind of idea and this kind of thing happens occasionally. I'm sure some people get away with it some of the time, but sheriffs perceive it as an abuse of the system, which it is. Not a good idea.

Not many people, other than college students, have the option of legitimately claiming two different residences, and choosing one as the legal residence.

[IAmASensFan]

Yes, everyone gets this kind of idea and this kind of thing happens occasionally. I'm sure some people get away with it some of the time, but sheriffs perceive it as an abuse of the system, which it is. Not a good idea.

Not many people, other than college students, have the option of legitimately claiming two different residences, and choosing one as the legal residence.

Well...I wonder, as a College student, this would fly if you are still considered a dependent for tax purposes...

I have no clue how it works down here, so I'm just posing this as a thought.

"Back home", if you are away at college, and your folks are footing the bill and claiming you as a dependent (which they can do there until you are 25 as long as you are a full time student), then your permanent residence is whatever their permanent residence is. You have no choice.

I believe this is also the case as it is something we've been dealing with with my stepdaughter

[CCWFacts]

That's an interesting and good point. I hadn't thought of that. It can be a tricky issue. The conclusion is, not many people truly have more than one residence.

These residence questions also come up for purposes of taxation, school choice, voting, holding office (Ed Jew!), etc.

One interesting point which contradicts what I said above: homeless people have the right to vote, theoretically the right to hold office, pay taxes, and get CCWs, and therefore they must have a location which is their residence, even if that location is not a fixed abode and lacks all the defining features of a residence.

Some people, like actors or business executives may travel so much, own multiple homes, etc. so they really do have options. Yet another way our current system discriminates against non-VIPs. For most of us regular people, where ya live, that's yer residence.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d1/Ed_jew.jpg

[xrMike]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Jew


Ahhhh, now I understand the references to Ed Jew... :D Looks like he's got some residency issues of his own.

[Quiet]

During the 90s, SBSO would talk to your neighbors (ie. non-criminal background check what's your neighbor like talk) when they processed your CCW application. Not sure if they or other LE agencies do that anymore.

:Pirate:

[CCWFacts]

Ahhhh, now I understand the references to Ed Jew... :D Looks like he's got some residency issues of his own.

Ed Jew is facing a bunch of felony charges relating to lying about his residence. If he had just kept the utilities consistently active there, used them, and said "hi" to the "neighbors" regularly, he would not be facing those charges, because they wouldn't be able to prove that he didn't reside there. But he was being so over-the-top, by having months when the utilities were shut, and not using them at all, and the neighbors seeing that the house was vacant, that he's trapped.

This shows that outrageously false claims of residence don't stand up, but if he had been just a bit smarter about it he would have gotten away with it.

I'm not recommending trying to test the limits on CCW apps, or try to fake a residence as he was doing, but if you really do have two homes, like Ed Jew did, and you really do live in both of them, like Ed Jew didn't, it is possible to make a legitimate claim.