Questions about unregistered rifle

[realmswalker]

My friend has a couple rifles and a couple handguns that are unregistered and not in the system. he knows they are not in the system because a friend who works for the police dept ran them and nothing came up.

he wants to know if it is illegal in any way to own a gun that is not registered and not in the system. he has a ruger 10/22, a rem 700, an sks, an m1 garand, a mossberg 500, a sagave 111, a remington model 721, a s&w model 14, a derringer, a 38 s&w revolver. And thats about it.

[sorensen440]

Owning them is not illegal

long guns are not registered anyways and as long as he didn't purchase them illegally (bringing them in from out of state ect.) then he is fine

[45DAVID1]

My friend has a couple rifles and a couple handguns that are unregistered and not in the system. he knows they are not in the system because a friend who works for the police dept ran them and nothing came up.

I wouldn't admit that. That is a big no no for people to access CLETS for personal use. If I recall it is a misdemeanor and he can be terminated since there is now an official record of him running the s/n's.

[mk3mitch]

Yeah, he is good to go. Why register? TECHNICALLY THEY DON'T EXIST! HAHAHAHA! I'm just kididng. But yeah, he is fine.

[Backcountry]

I wouldn't admit that. That is a big no no for people to access CLETS for personal use.

Too late now, the law has already been admittedly broken... hide the dog.

[rayra]

yep, hide the dog.

Nothing requiring that ALL handguns be registered. But it depends on how and when he acquired them. If it was before the raft of laws that sewed up all the 'loopholes' for buying a handgun 'off the books' or unregistered intrafamilial transfer (pre-~'96), then he's legal.
But if something goes wrong and he didn't previously comply with those laws, there could be trouble for him and the seller.

[Wildhawk66]

he knows they are not in the system because a friend who works for the police dept ran them and nothing came up.

I wouldn't admit that. That is a big no no for people to access CLETS for personal use. If I recall it is a misdemeanor and he can be terminated since there is now an official record of him running the s/n's.

In general I don't believe there is an issue if someone approaches a law enforcement officer (friend or not) and asks for assistance in determining if firearms are legal/legally registered. While it was for a friend, running a firearm is a relatively common LE duty.

However, the officer should have known long arms will usually only be in the system if run before/stolen/associated with a crime, so he should have known better than to run them just to check things out. On a side note, if the officer really is this guys friend, he should have also been worried about the position he would have been in if one of his friends firearms had come up with an issue...

[45DAVID1]

In general I don't believe there is an issue if someone approaches a law enforcement officer (friend or not) and asks for assistance in determining if firearms are legal/legally registered. While it was for a friend, running a firearm is a relatively common LE duty.
On a side note, if the officer really is this guys friend, he should have also been worried about the position he would have been in if one of his friends firearms had come up with an issue...

Being someone who has CLETS access and has gone through the required training I call tell you that you can only access CLETS information while in the course of your job. Running information for friends is strictly prohibitted. If the OP had a question as to the status of the firearms he could have called the DOJ and gotten answers from them. What the officer did for his friend is in essence misuse of his authority through the use of restricted computer systems.

ETA... section 707(c) of the California Code of Regulations requires a justification of a "need to know" and a "right to know" when retrieving info off of CLETS and with the dissemination of information to 3rd parties.

[BB63Squid]

CLETS access for other than official duty queries is verboten. That being said, usually nothing becomes of it as it would require someone to complain about the query before it would show up on anybodies radar.

Since your friend requested that the SN's be ran I have serious doubts he would turn around and complain.

In the future though I would not advertise the fact that your buddy did that favor for you.

[Wildhawk66]

xxx