Walk It Through: The Unlocked Safe
A loaded pistol in a bedroom, a visiting teenager, a gun left in a parked car, and what the storage law asks.
A parent in Smyrna keeps a loaded pistol in a nightstand. A teenage nephew is staying for the summer.
Two things a person in this spot might do. Picking one shows what the law says about it.
A household with one handgun and a visiting minor. Prohibited persons, assault weapons, and the civil liability of a gun owner are not worked through here.
A practice walkthrough, not a prediction of how any real one will go. Legal information, not legal advice.
Words this turns on
Terms with a legal meaning that is narrower than the everyday one. Each links to the definition and the authority behind it.
- Person prohibitedA person barred from purchasing, owning, possessing or controlling a deadly weapon or ammunition, such as one convicted of a felony or of misdemeanor domestic violence.
- Physical injuryThe harm that makes assault in the third degree, a class A misdemeanor, and with a deadly weapon or a victim 62 or older, the second degree.
- Unsafe storage of a firearmLeaving a loaded firearm within reach of a child or prohibited person who then gets it, when it was not locked up, trigger locked, or kept somewhere reasonably secure.