is it legal to own a broken handgun or part of a handgun in california?

[cali94609]

hi everyone , i have been looking on the internet and cant find the answers to a few questions I have. I stumbled upon this website during my search and it seems really informative. i just became a member and i have a few questions .

1, is it legal to own part of a handgun in california? i used to and sometimes still do buy cars from tow yards and auctions . in one of them, one time i found a part of a handgun (the top part that you cock back, the slide?) and also a clip (holds 6) . it looked like it was for the same gun . but there was no gun . believe me i looked for it! haha, like most of the stuff i find, i kept the parts bc it was cool and i didnt know what else to do with them. i figured it was ok bc it was not a gun and just parts.

2, is it legal to own a handgun that is broken ? one time my friends were exploring some storm drain tunnels and they found a very rusty gun that had been submerged in the water for a long time that obviously didnt work. they convinced my friend that found it to leave it, bc they were scared and they didnt want to get caught with it. basically they wanted no part of it , which i understand bc who knows why it was there in the first place but i always wondered about this and this seems like a good time to ask. he always says he should have took it bc it would have been a cool art piece. we still dont have an answer on if it would have been legal or not. also along the same lines what if it was just broken somehow and not completely rusted through but just didnt work?

3, along the same lines just for future knowledge , is it legal to have a complete handgun in california , but that is in pieces , or one that is not working because it has missing parts ? lets say instead of finding the slide part, that i had found the part that looks more like a gun , with the handle trigger and barrel , would it have been legal to keep / own ?

im asking these questions for california laws bc i know they are very strict . also , i understand about finding one in a car or in a storm drain or somewhere else and that they could have other legal issues , such as why were they there in the first place .... im not asking about that . if i did find a gun in that situation i wouldnt keep it bc it could already have problems associated with it, like it was used illegally or in a crime , etc ... im not asking that so i dont need people to explain that to me , just hypothetical and the main question im asking is the first one bc i actually have a piece of a handgun and i dont want it if it is illegal to have it. hopefully someone can answer these random questions, ive wondered for a while. thanks everyone!

 

[Zoogster]

In #1 it is just the slide, not legally a firearm, and unrestricted.
Free to own it.
Though one has to ask why it is in there, and what happened to the gun.


In #2 it may or may not be legal, but not wise. A broken gun is also still legally a gun just as if it was fully functional, unless broken in a way the law details for demilling.
Handguns in California have been registered on transfer since the 90s and private transfers without such outlawed.
This means many legal handguns in the state are registered to a specific owner.
That gun has a good chance of being registered to someone in the state.

It was in a storm drain, and is heavy and metal and so does not flow with water and end up in a storm drain on its own very well, this leads us to believe it was intenionally disposed of.
A legal owner could have sold or disposed of thier firearm in many other ways. It was probably a criminal disposing of a gun.
Most criminals are in possession of stolen guns that either they stole or someone down a chain of people who possessed it stole at some point.

So there is a good chance you would be in possession of a stolen registered gun, that was not registered to you.


For #3, it would most likely be similar to above, and either lost or stolen, and registered to someone in the state.
The law I believe mainly deals with transfers, and so finding and keeping it may or may not be okay, but morally and legally it is likely someone else's registered property and you probably shouldn't hold onto it. Because it is most likely registered determining who the legal owner is would be easy for law enforcement. (Though to be fair law enforcement many places in CA is known to never notify the owner and simply keep/dispose of the gun rather than return it to its rightful owner.)


What is technically legal also differs from what may be believed. If you are found in possession of a lost or stolen or potentially illegally transferred gun getting people to believe you simply found it and chose to keep it may prove challenging whether it is true or not.
If they don't believe that there is a variety of charges, like possession of stolen property, theft, etc to start with.


Also if one is on probation or parole, or has other legal restrictions, then possession of parts not normally restricted may still violate terms or legal restrictions.

 

[cali94609]

Ah, thanks that all makes a lot of sense ! i feel a lot better knowing that the slide and clip i have is not illegal to have! maybe it was just extra pieces, i have no idea why it was there and there was no gun. that is the best i have been able to come up with. or someone ditched the gun because of the numbers but decided to keep some pieces from it? the car did come from a police auction so who knows i guess anything is possible.

in the case of the rusty one , they said it was so rusty that you could not make out any type of numbers at all , just a rusty gun shaped item and the revolver part where the bullets go was completely rusted shut, i imagine it was really bad as they ended up leaving it . my friend said it was stuck to the ground and had to pry it up . if it was unidentifiable would it have been illegal to keep still as it was unidentifiable? yes im sure it was dumped there and probably came from some illegal activity ... that is the only reason i could see it being in a storm drain haha .

as for the last question , so the gun , would just be the part that has the serial number ? and any other parts would just be parts ? i didnt even think about it being registered to someone , i forgot they have numbers on them , that makes a lot of sense . so basically if you got caught with anything that resembles a gun and has a serial number on it that isnt registered to you, you could get in trouble , no matter the condition because it could be stolen property / or not supposed to be yours ? do you think it would be considered a gun charge , or just stolen property ? if it was incomplete ? or what if it was a incomplete gun that had no serial number ? do you think you would you get in as much trouble for having that as you would for having a complete gun with serial numbers that wasnt registered to you? or would it be a lesser charge? haha sorry for all the hypothetical questions , ive wondered about this for a while . when getting cars from impound auctions or buying storage auction units im always hoping to find guns , but the more i think about it , im glad i havent! thanks for answering my questions!

 

[Sav .250]

The state of California surely has a web site that gives that information.

 

[Frank Ettin]

Question has been answered. We'll leave it at that.