cmgee67 wrote: Sun Feb 17, 2019 11:45 am
Long guns : Rifles, and shotguns can be in plain view on the dash loaded or unloaded if you want
Handguns: must be out of plain sight so basically concealed. This is for LTC’ers and non.
I believe you can have your handgun on your person in your car if you don’t have a LTC but I’m not 100% on that one.
As far as firearms are concerned I don’t know. I would like to carry my 300 black out pistol in the truck but I am afraid on the wildest occasion I would have to use it, I’d get some leo who doesn’t know the difference between pistol and short barreled rifle. So if I’m going to carry a rifle I carry a full sized rifle and same with shotgun. If I’m going to carry an extra pistol I carry a generic handgun
Yes, you can have your handgun on your person in the vehicle if you are not a LTC holder, but it must be concealed ... and don’t leave the vehicle with it on your person unless transitioning between your home and vehicle, or your place of business and vehicle. If you have an LTC, you may open carry the handgun on your person, but I’m pretty sure that it MUST be on your person. An openly displayed handgun sitting on the passenger seat would lack the sanction of LTC, and would violate MPA.
Regarding long guns and NFA items in your vehicle ... to MY mind, it boils down to a financial decision.
I have one registered AR lower with two SBR (10.5” and 11.5”) uppers and one 16” upper for it. Both uppers are suppressed. (I own several other ARs, but this is the only lower that is NFA registered.) As I understand the law, the NFA requires that you be able to provide a copy of your tax stamp to an LEO upon request, when transporting/using a registered firearm - regardless of
why you’re transporting/using it. And for the purposes of the law, a silencer is considered a firearm also. Therefore, to keep a suppressed SBR in my vehicle, I need to also be in possession of copies of two different tax stamps if asked for them by an LEO.
The two stamps were a $400 investment. Add in the cost of the suppressor itself - which, at the time that
I bought it for $830, was roughly the price of a pretty decent AR all by itself, and a lot more than the same model of suppressor sells for today. Then add in the cost of the SBR itself (well into 4 figures), and this represents a fairly large financial investment. So the question becomes, am I willing to risk any of it being lost
to me, through either theft, LEO confiscation, or destruction in an accident? The stamp documentation I carry when I transport these things are mere copies and easily replaced, since the originals are in my safe at home, or stored as PDFs from filing Form 1s. AND THEN, there are the legal hoops you have to jump through in order to report an NFA item as lost, stolen, or destroyed. So as much as I like the NFA stuff, I sometimes seriously question the wisdom (for ME) of using a two-stamp setup as a “truck gun”.
I still have a couple of stripped AR lowers in the safe, so here is ONE possible compromise.... I
could build an AR pistol for vehicle use, topped with one of my SBR uppers, and use the much less expensive Form 1 suppressor that I own. While the legal hassles are all still there if the suppressor is lost, it is a lot less hassle than if a suppressed SBR were lost. The Form 1 can cost me about $240 all told to build, and while it’s a little heavier than my commercial cans, it works very well, and it is easily replaced from a financial perspective.
....
OR....
I could just throw a 16” M4 or my 20” A4 into the car and not worry about it. Both rifles, BTW, have a suppressor-mount/flashhider, so if I ever actually felt the need to suppress, I could. But I don’t see why a suppressor would be my biggest priority in ANY situation where I would feel compelled to pull out a rifle out of my vehicle and go to work. I
like shooting suppressed, but I’m a fat old man, and I’m not an operator operating operationally. I can’t be a ninja, nor do I want to try.
So yeah.... I think that’s what I’m going to stick with...a regular AR carbine or rifle. Nuttin’ fancy.
And for those who don’t already own one or more ARs, Grabagun.com sends out a promotional email nearly every single day, and nearly every one of those emails includes an ad for either a
S&W M&P15 Sport II in 5.56, or a
Ruger AR 556, for only $499. Just to put things into perspective, that’s less than a lot of us paid for our plain old Glock 19s. Both carbines are perfectly good guns for most uses. I’d buy one of those $500 ARs and a cheap black soft case to keep it in, and throw in a few extra loaded magazines. They both come with an A2 front sight post, and a folding rear BUIS, so you don’t even need to worry about sights. I probably wouldn’t even spend more money on an optic for it; but if I did, it would be something fairly inexpensive, like a Primary Arms RDS. And then I’d just leave it in the car and quit worrying. (Bring it inside at night, of course.)
Just throw an inexpensive AR in the car, and don’t obsess about it.
