Tricky Gun Transfer Question

[Nor Cal GRABAKA]

So a friend of mine purchased a handgun for his girlfriend about 15 years ago. He took her to the store to sign the papers so it's legally hers. She then went crazy and moved out of the country, she told him that he could keep the gun but she left before signing the gun over to him. The guns been sitting in it's case never shot for the last 15 years at my friends house, what I wanted to know is if there is any way for him to gain legal ownership of the gun with out her being present since there is no way of contacting her...?

Any help would be greatly appreciated...

[jtmkinsd]

So a friend of mine purchased a handgun for his girlfriend about 15 years ago. He took her to the store to sign the papers so it's legally hers. She then went crazy and moved out of the country, she told him that he could keep the gun but she left before signing the gun over to him. The guns been sitting in it's case never shot for the last 15 years at my friends house, what I wanted to know is if there is any way for him to gain legal ownership of the gun with out her being present since there is no way of contacting her...?

Any help would be greatly appreciated...

He can fill out a Voluntary Registration Form and mail it off to DOJ with $19. Only problem would be if when she went crazy she reported the firearm stolen.

[kemasa]

Since the question was asked if there was a "legal" way to gain ownership ...

The problem is that there is no way that he could legally transfer the firearm since he has no proof from the owner that the property is to be transferred.

One way to legally gain ownership is to claim that it is abandon property and figure out how to claim it based on that.

With all that said, filling out the form would most likely work and it could be claimed that the firearm was given to him, although it was not transferred at the time and I think that it was required to go through a FFL at that point in time (not sure though).