What do you do if your gun is stolen? What if your gun is lost? Do you have a duty to report? Does your state have mandatory reporting for a lost or stolen firearm? The Armed Attorneys break down the gun law that applies to lost (not in a boating accident) and stolen guns.
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PARTIAL AUTO-TRANSCRIPT
Today we’re talking about having a lost or stolen gun and what you should do in the wake of such an incident … to start this conversation off we have to start with the preface that in the overwhelming majority of cases the right thing to do and the proper thing to do and the advisable thing to do is to report the firearm lost or stolen to local law enforcement but when we have a client who calls in and says you know hey i just walked out to my car i see glass on the ground my handgun’s missing out of my center console you know we do go through kind of a screening checklist and i think it’s good questions to ask yourself before you know making a decision and if you’re answering yes any of these questions it’s really important i think that you speak to an attorney so when you’re when you’re talking to your clients Emily what’s that list you go through yeah so it’s pretty brief but was the gun lost or stolen from a place that you weren’t supposed to have it right were you in an illegal place when this happened are you now an illegal person you know we know you bought the gun legally but has something changed about you that has made you illegal or could it have been accessed by children which is very common and then finally was the gun itself legal right have you made any modifications to it that could make it illegal is it a legal firearm in … that brings us kind of to the second point which is a lot of states require that you report it within a certain amount of time right so not only is it generally best practice but sometimes it’s mandated by law yeah so here are the states that we know of that have mandatory reporting requirements either within 24 hours or up to about seven days those days are California Colorado Connecticut Delaware D.C. Hawaii Illinois Maryland Massachusetts Michigan New Jersey New York Ohio Oregon Rhode Island and Virginia and for each of those states you know maybe maybe that’s either whether you decide to voluntarily report or you’re required to report the information the police are most interested in are you know the last time you saw the firearm the first time that you noticed that it was missing and then the make model and serial number the other thing that they’re probably interested in is some documentation maybe a sales receipt with the serial number on it maybe it’s a picture of the firearm case that it came in with the serial number on the side in any of those cases you want to give them copies you don’t want to provide them originals on any of those things but this is a problem and kind of a pitfall … have your own list of what you own the make model serial number and keep it in a very safe place not with your firearms right you don’t want it to be stolen along with guns but make sure that you have done this preparatory work ahead of time … but when the ATF comes and knocks on your door … you can say hey mr ATF agent you know this is what i left my possession here’s the police agency here’s the report number please go talk to them … when in doubt or when confronted by law enforcement in a way that you feel is hostile i mean anytime the ATF is knocking on my door call an attorney it really is important every single case is different even in something like this which you know you’re far more likely to have a loss or till on firearm than you are to be involved in a self-defense incident so as much as we prepare for self-defense which i think we all do um a lot and all the time a lot of people don’t prepare for this even though it’s the more likely scenario …
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