Question reg

[ch89lx]

I went to the gun shop today just to look around as usual. I was talking to one of the employees there about how I purchased a gun for my wife for her birthday. He asked me if I had registered it under her name. I told him no cause it was a surprise, but that I was gonna transfer it to her name. He told me that I better hurry cause if she were to shoot someone in self-defense even if they were raping her in her own home that she would get arrested and go to jail cause the gun was not under her name. How credible is that?

[Librarian]

IN - credible.

While having her own gun in her own name is a good idea, if that's what she wants, in self defense a person may use any weapon at hand - ownership is not an issue.

(Since you're buying her a gun, one presumes she is not a 'prohibited person'.)

[dieselpower]

^... This is a myth that stems from the New Jersey (or New York) law which says something like... any use of firearm not unregistered to you is a felony... Its not a California law, but many people think its in all State laws. This is part of the media's use of the term "unregistered semiautomatic ________". It plants a seed of FUD into the viewer.

Librarian will correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the only time in California the firearm must be registered in your name is when you are carrying it for a LTC / CCW. I can loan a firearm or house a firearm in any place I choose. The extent of that loan and the access to that firearm CAN BE improper at times, but that's a whole nother issue in the law. You and the wife need not worry about who registered the handgun when you bought it. Its community property if neither of you are prohibited persons.

[tenpercentfirearms]

If it was for your friend, there could be an issue. However, if you are loaning said pistol to your friend for 30 days, that is legal.

If I go over to your house as a guest and a dude home invades us and I get a hold of one of your guns and shoot him, that is fine. No firearm transfer took place.

The problem lies when you shoot someone, the cops show up, they find out your firearm is illegal (I love when customers tell me they snuck a Taurus Judge into the state for home defense: idiots!) or they find out you illegally bought it. So when your wife shoots the guy, they run the serial number, find it registered to Wesley Morris in Taft, CA and ask her where she got the gun and she says she bought it off of Pierre who lives down the street. She doesn't know Pierre's last name.

When she says its my husbands gun and they run it to your name, they shake her hand and say "Good shoot!".

[ch89lx]

I kinda figured that he was full of hot air, but he said a lot of people are unaware of this law. That's why I asked