TJW

I'd also suggest printing out a copy of the safe passage laws. I literally got into an argument with a friend's husband that is a NY state trooper when he told me i couldn't even pass thru NY with a handgun. He is a pro-gun guy, and he told me he wouldn't bother giving any gun owner a hard time that was responsible, but it scares me to know that we know more than some of the leos out there. You can beat the rap, but you can't beat the night in jail.

Every time I see these similar threads, I can't help notice that everyone plays prosecutor. If the prosecutor really thought your actions in using an "illegally transferred" gun was unjustified, you'd be facing much more serious charges that will make you not care about the illegal transfer. Any defense attorney would argue that if your life was in danger, it is a crime where you can use duress as a justifiable defense. At the end of the day, if your girlfriend believes their life is threatened and had no other options, I'd suspect that this is NOT something to worry about.

I totally get what you are saying; however, it still comes down to using exact fact patterns, and then being practical in the debate. So, I'm in my house, I hand my wife my unloaded weapon, she dry fires, she fiddles around with it, she breaks it down, cleans it, pretends to be Dirty Harry, even flips it around like a high-schooler in the color guard! Pray tell, how any form of law enforcement will practically be able to bring the charges of an illegal transfer? You may technically legally be correct by the letter of the law, but outside of doing something completely negligent with a loaded weapon resulting in a discharge that brings the police to your door with probable cause, practically, no law enforcement agency would ever find out if your spounse was simply handling your weapon in your home. If everyone applies to the appropriate safety rules, again, the only thing that will bring a law enforcement agency to your door would be your spouse using a weapon in defense of her life, which she's protected by the law to do. To me, it seems impractical to even be arguing these points. If we are all this worried about the letter of the law, surely we are even more worried about properly handling a weapon and ensuring that safety is paramount and not handing any loaded weapon to anyone in our homes in a manner that would bring the law to your front door..

I posted this in the other thread about the topic, but the more you skew the fact patterns, the more difficult it will be to decide which laws oversee the situation. Case in point, if your spouse uses your weapon to defend herself in an emergency/life death situation, although technically it may be an illegal transfer (I'll continue to let you debate) there are other laws the discuss what your defenses to an illegal transfer taking place in this situation are. There is a jutifiable defense called "duress" which basically allows you to break the law in the event of your own self preservation or defense of others in your family, which you normally would not do if not for the threat created on you or your family member's lives. That being said, no prosecutor would ever file these charges if you were attacked and even if done, no defense attorney worth his charges couldn't get you off of these charges. The driving force behind using this as your defense would be that you feared for your life/safety. In this instance, your wife could and should grab your weapon if it is an option to protect either her life or the lives of others in your home.

Irrespective of whether or not a spouse using your weapon during an emergency/life or death situation is technically an illegal transfer, wouldn't the legal defense of "duress" be an acceptable defense to any gun charge here? Brandishing a family member's weapon, as in the Point Pleasant example over an argument, probably wouldn't escalate to that level, but if someone broke into your home, killed your dog, then brandished a knife/gun/weapon and your spouse took your weapon and defended herself by shooting the perp, I would think that duress would be an acceptable and justifiable defense to any "illegal transfer" charge. I can't see a) any defense attorney worth their salt not getting you off the charge using that defense or b) any prosecutor charging you with the illegal transfer crime in an emergency situation. Duress basically means that the defendant (spouse) was forced by someone else to break the law under an immediate threat of serious harm befalling himself (spouse) or someone else (family member), ie she (spouse) would not have committed the offence but for the threat.