Liability for stolen gun

[mrvaudo]

If I recall the letter the city sends me whenever I buy a gun if someone in my house takes my gun and does bad things. I can be prosecuted for allowing easy access I believe. What happens if a criminal ends up in my house and takes nightstand gun and police show up and criminal shoots them. Any possibility for the homeowner being in trouble.

[Librarian]

Not generally.

Despite the best efforts of some cities, 'storage requirements' are not imposed statewide.

There are possible issues if a 'child' gets one of your guns, but not if they might break in. See also the wiki -- http://wiki.calgunsfoundation.org/Storage_and_Children

[bountyhunter]

If I recall the letter the city sends me whenever I buy a gun if someone in my house takes my gun and does bad things. I can be prosecuted for allowing easy access I believe. What happens if a criminal ends up in my house and takes nightstand gun and police show up and criminal shoots them. Any possibility for the homeowner being in trouble.

You are generally required to take such measures as a normally prudent person would to safeguard it or whatever the law requires (which is not necessarily prudent). Anyway, if you leave an unlocked gun in a house with kids and they get to it, that's a crime. If an adult staying in your house gets it abd does harm? Not sure if it's a crime but a civil suit will likely take your money and your house.

I don't think you are liable if somebody breaks in and steals it since that is not an occurrance you would forsee as having a likely chance of happening.

[Decoligny]

If I recall the letter the city sends me whenever I buy a gun if someone in my house takes my gun and does bad things. I can be prosecuted for allowing easy access I believe. What happens if a criminal ends up in my house and takes nightstand gun and police show up and criminal shoots them. Any possibility for the homeowner being in trouble.

You are most likely thinking of the law dealing with a minor getting ahold of your unsecured gun and doing something bad with it where someone gets hurt/killed. This only applies if a minor who is allowed to be in your house gets ahold of an unsecured gun.

If an adult or a minor break into your house, you are clear of any legal responsibility if they steal your gun, secured or not.

[fiddletown]

...If an adult or a minor break into your house, you are clear of any legal responsibility if they steal your gun, secured or not.

Not necessarily. You might have no criminal liability, but under some circumstances you might have civil liability (i. e., be held liable to pay money damages for any harm causes).

1. In general, everyone has a legal duty to exercise due care to avoid reasonably foreseeable injury to others. If one is found not to have done so and thus caused damage to another, he could be required to compensate the injured person for that damage.
   
   
2. A gun is a potentially dangerous instrumentality. If someone stores his gun in a manner in which it is foreseeable that it can be accessed by an unauthorized person, and such person gets the gun and hurts someone, under some circumstances a jury might decide that the gun owner failed to exercise appropriate care and may be held financially liable.
   
   
3. And if the gun owner's conduct was so careless as to be considered reckless, he could also face criminal charges.
   
   
4. These sorts of results are highly circumstance dependent. Whether there can be liability will be a matter of exactly what happened and how.
   
   
5. Consider this case from gun-friendly Montana, Estate of Strever v. Cline, 278 Mont. 165 (Mont., 1995), at 174 -- 175 (emphasis added):

   ...A firearm, particularly one that is loaded or has ammunition in close proximity, is considered a dangerous instrumentality and therefore requires a higher degree of care in its use or handling. This concept is set out in the Restatement (Second) of Torts, which provides:
   
   Care required. The care required is always reasonable care. This standard never varies, but the care which it is reasonable to require of the actor varies with the danger involved in his act, and is proportionate to it. The greater the danger, the greater the care which must be exercised.
   
   As in all cases where the reasonable character of the actor's conduct is in question, its utility is to be weighed against the magnitude of the risk which it involves. [Citation omitted.] The amount of attention and caution required varies with the magnitude of the harm likely to be done if care is not exercised, and with the utility of the act. Therefore, if the act has little or no social value and is likely to cause any serious harm, it is reasonable to require close attention and caution. So too, if the act involves a risk of death or serious bodily harm, and particularly if it is capable of causing such results to a number of persons, the highest attention and caution are required even if the act has a very considerable utility. Thus those who deal with firearms ... are required to exercise the closest attention and the most careful precautions, not only in preparing for their use but in using them....
   
   Restatement (Second) of Tortsgiven the foreseeability of the risk involved in the improper and unsafe use and storage of a firearmLimberhand, Maguire, Phillips, Mang and Busta and the above referred to standards of care set forth in Prosser and Keeton on TortsRestatement, we hold that, as a matter of law, the owner of a firearm has a duty to the general public to use and to store the firearm in a safe and prudent manner taking into consideration the type of firearm, whether it is loaded or unloaded, whether the ammunition is in close proximity or easily attainable, and the location and circumstances of its use and storage.
   
   Because we conclude that Susanj owed a legal duty to the general public to store his firearm and ammunition in a manner consistent with this standard of care,...

   
   
6. In general someone who keeps his gun either on his person under his control or locked up (there are lock boxes with key touch combinations offering ready access to a loaded gun) will go a long way towards avoiding such risks.

[mrvaudo]

#6 i agree. Was thinking I should lock in a drawer or get some kind of easy access safe probably.

[Decoligny]

So the locked doors and windows on the house mean nothing and a gun owner is liable because he left his gun in a large locked container (house)?

How about if not only the outside doors are locked, but the bedroom door also? How many layers of security are necessary to be legally secure?

[fiddletown]

So the locked doors and windows on the house mean nothing and a gun owner is liable because he left his gun in a large locked container (house)?

How about if not only the outside doors are locked, but the bedroom door also? How many layers of security are necessary to be legally secure?

That's not what I wrote, and that's not what the Montana court said in Strever. Read all that again.

The point is that is that your statement:

...If an adult or a minor break into your house, you are clear of any legal responsibility if they steal your gun, secured or not.

is not true. Maybe you'll have no legal responsibility and maybe you will. It will depend on exactly what happened and how it happened. And if you're really unlucky, it will be up to a jury to decide if you took adequate care to prevent foreseeable, unauthorized access to your gun.

[bountyhunter]

It always amazes me there are people who don't realize there are hundreds of thousands of lawyers looking for any chance to file a civil lawsuit. You don't have to have a penal code violation to point to, he just needs to find twelve idiots he can convince that some bad thing might not have happened if you had tried harder.... and you're screwed. You won't go to jail but you will spend the rest of your life working off the judgement.

[bountyhunter]

If I recall the letter the city sends me whenever I buy a gun if someone in my house takes my gun and does bad things. I can be prosecuted for allowing easy access I believe. What happens if a criminal ends up in my house and takes nightstand gun and police show up and criminal shoots them. Any possibility for the homeowner being in trouble.

I'd say there should not be, but no guarantee there won't be. I don't see a crime you could be charged with, but family of the officer could sue in civil court claiming the gun was "not secure". Remember they only have to find twelve brain dead morons who hate guns to get a civil judgement, they don't need to find a statute that you violated.

If the gun was secured in any way like an electronic safe or lockbox, you'd probably be in the clear. But if it's in an unlocked drawer, they will argue that made it too easy for others to gain access. That's not my opinion, but they might get twelve gun haters to agree.