Are air pistols considered "firearms"?

[Don90250]

To steer this back to the original question, it depends on lotsa things.

1. Does he want a legal answer or a practical answer?
2. Does his state define firearms, handguns, airguns?
3. Exactly what are the terms of his probation?
4. How does the probation office interpret the terms of his probation?
5. What does his municipality say? (California exempts air pistols from firearms laws, but my city includes them.)
6. How are the local police instructed to react?

The law may be on his side, but it's sort of like demanding the right of way in a traffic situation. It just might not be worth the hassle.

[Fortitudo Dei]

Looks like Australia not perfect place either :(
How about New Zealand, any clue?
Russ

New Zealand is nearly as bad as Australia

Actually the situation in New Zealand is quite different.

Anyone over the age of 18 can buy and use any air pistol / air rifle with no power limit and no license. Anyone aged 16 to 18 can also do this as long as they hold a standard firearms license. Under 16 and you are not allowed to purchase, but can use under the supervision of someone who can.

Anyone over the age of 16 can apply for a firearms license (involves attending quite an interesting lecture and sitting a relatively easy multi-choice exam related to gun safety). Apart from having to keep your guns in a locked cupboard or similar, you can own any number of hunting rifles and shotguns (no registration required). Semi-autos are fine (which is not the case in Australia) and so are silencers. You are also allowed to hunt any game animal at any time of the year with no bag limits and no hunting permit fees. You can shoot any number of Australian Brushtail Opossums, wallabies (NZ'ers take great delight in shooting species which are protected in Australia!), red deer, Thar (another endangered species in it's original home in the Himalayas), elk, wild boar, sika, chamois, goats, rabbits... the list goes on. You can shoot them quite happily in National Parks too and children are allowed to shoot under supervision.

However cartridge pistol ownership does mean you have to join a club, go through a probationary period and you are limited to owning 12 pistols, but they can be of any calibre.

If you have an interest in military guns, you can quite easily get a license to own and use military semi-autos with any size magazine (and no problem hunting with these). There is a higher security requirement compared to rifles and shotties (i.e a decent safe rather than a locked cupboard!)

And if you have an interest in the weird and wonderful, you can get a license to own fully auto Uzi’s, Mach 10s, .50 cal machine guns, RPG launchers, mortar tubes....

There are also no regional / state variations - one law for all.

So yes - things in NZ are quite different from Australia

[Russ]

@

[Jose Rossy]

Fortitudo, indeed you guys have it much better than the Aussies.

But other than the game shooting opportunities, in which you have us beaten by a long shot, we in the US still enjoy access to firearms that is virtually unrestricted.

I need no license of ANY kind to own any kind of firearm except a fully automatic one. No limits on the number of firearms, their calibers, the amount of ammo on hand, and not even a requirement to keep my fireams stored in any specfied way.

I do need a license to carry a handgun on me for self defense. But such license cannot be denied by police unless I fall into one of the very narrowly defined categories that preculde its issuance. The police have NO discretion in the matter. IIRC, neither you nor the Aussies can have such a means of defense so easily.

[Ted Bell]

Fortitudo, indeed you guys have it much better than the Aussies.

But other than the game shooting opportunities, in which you have us beaten by a long shot, we in the US still enjoy access to firearms that is virtually unrestricted.

I need no license of ANY kind to own any kind of firearm except a fully automatic one. No limits on the number of firearms, their calibers, the amount of ammo on hand, and not even a requirement to keep my fireams stored in any specfied way.

I do need a license to carry a handgun on me for self defense. But such license cannot be denied by police unless I fall into one of the very narrowly defined categories that preculde its issuance. The police have NO discretion in the matter. IIRC, neither you nor the Aussies can have such a means of defense so easily.

Careful Jose- things are very state and city specfic in this regard. For example, I don't think a resident of Washington, D.C., New York, Chicago, or Massachusettes would be so quick to put down the NZ'ers system. Those folks' gun rights are definitely getting trampled.

-Ted

[Fortitudo Dei]

Thanks for that Jose,

Yes - I have to admit that our laws fall down when it comes to "self defence". Theoretically, we are allowed to use "reasonable force" to protect ourselves or family from violence, but if this required the use of a firearm, one could expect a lengthy police investigation into the incident.

The US Federal laws as you state them do seem very attractive, however at the same time I hear about the laws that individual US states or cities (or even counties) then impose upon shooters that restrict what they can own (e.g. California, New York etc). One advantage of having firearms legislation built around the use of guns for hunting and target shooting (rather than for defence) is that we don't have any rules regarding safety catches, drop tests, melting points or other such things.

Also the rules regarding air transportation or the importation of guns and ammunition by overseas visitors are sane and sensible and customs & immigration staff are friendly and helpful. You could arrive as a tourist (completely unannounced) at Auckland International Airport with a hunting rifle and ammunition in your luggage and you would be issued with a visitor’s license on-the-spot (takes about 15 minutes). If you had an AP or an AR, they would'nt even give you a second glance. Some of what I have read recently on TT regarding the trauma that some people have had to deal with when travelling across or into the United States with just a simple target air pistol beggars belief.

[Jose Rossy]

Fortitudo, indeed you guys have it much better than the Aussies.

But other than the game shooting opportunities, in which you have us beaten by a long shot, we in the US still enjoy access to firearms that is virtually unrestricted.

I need no license of ANY kind to own any kind of firearm except a fully automatic one. No limits on the number of firearms, their calibers, the amount of ammo on hand, and not even a requirement to keep my fireams stored in any specfied way.

I do need a license to carry a handgun on me for self defense. But such license cannot be denied by police unless I fall into one of the very narrowly defined categories that preculde its issuance. The police have NO discretion in the matter. IIRC, neither you nor the Aussies can have such a means of defense so easily.

Careful Jose- things are very state and city specfic in this regard. For example, I don't think a resident of Washington, D.C., New York, Chicago, or Massachusettes would be so quick to put down the NZ'ers system. Those folks' gun rights are definitely getting trampled.

-Ted

I've already acknowledged those exceptions in a previous post. We still have 45 to 47 states where gun ownership is very lightly regulated.

[Jose Rossy]

Thanks for that Jose,The US Federal laws as you state them do seem very attractive, however at the same time I hear about the laws that individual US states or cities (or even counties) then impose upon shooters that restrict what they can own (e.g. California, New York etc). One advantage of having firearms legislation built around the use of guns for hunting and target shooting (rather than for defence) is that we don't have any rules regarding safety catches, drop tests, melting points or other such things.

Again, you are talking about a very tiny minority in a huge country. It is very easy to avoid dealing with those few localities that have seen it fit to violate our rights. The fight goes on.

Those rules regarding safety catches, drop tests, etc, are found in only California and Massachussetts. Two states out of fifty, and they have been defeated everywhere else the topic has come up.

There are advantages to a Federal system such as ours, where the lunacy of California is easy to stop from spreading to the rest of the country.

[TomF]

I have a cousin can't own a firearm because of his felony charge, but he is on probation for 2 years and the charge will be dropped after two years of imposed sentence. One of the conditions are that he cannot own firearms during the 2 years. He has been practicing to shoot competitively for a while but he made this mistake. I was going to suggest air pistols instead of .22 he is used to. But before I let him know I wanted to make sure that APs are not considered to be "firearms" and that he can practice with them until he gets his rights back.

thanks in advance.

I dont know what he did, but the terms of his probation may say something about the posession of weapons. And an airgun maybe classified as a weapon.

So ask the probation officer and his lawyer.