Traveling to states up north.

[Stormvet]

Is it illegal to travel to DC and NY in a vehicle from Texas with a sidearm if you have a Texas Permit. Does anyone know the storage requirements while there?

[ScottDLS]

Is it illegal to travel to DC and NY in a vehicle from Texas with a sidearm if you have a Texas Permit. Does anyone know the storage requirements while there?

Yes. It is illegal to possess a handgun in New York or DC without it being registered. In NY a NY handgun permit will also be your registration. In DC you will have to have a DC registration card for the gun and a concealed carry permit if you wish to carry it in your car. I am from Texas and have both in DC. You will not be able to get one in less than a couple months with in person training and a visit to DC Metro PD. In New York you will not be able to get a permit as a non-resident. Leave your gun at home.

[Stormvet]

I thought I could carry it then store it while in those locations. By store it I mean to store it in a storage unit in a state that close by that allows it.

[howdy]

Airline horror story. Passenger A is traveling by air across New York with a destination of Maine to go hunting. He has a checked bag with a legal, declared handgun in the bag. The aircraft has to divert to Laguardia airport in New York because of weather in Maine. The airline gives hotel rooms for the overnight in New York. Passenger A retrieves his checked bag and goes to the hotel. The next morning, he checks in for his continuing flight and informs the agent that he has a handgun in the bag he is checking. The agent summons law enforcement that charges passenger A with felony possession of a handgun because the gun is not registered in New York.

[srothstein]

I thought I could carry it then store it while in those locations. By store it I mean to store it in a storage unit in a state that close by that allows it.

The Firearm Owner's Protection Act of 1986 says that you can legally carry a firearm in your checked baggage or in the trunk of your car while traveling interstate, without regard to local or state laws. The problem with the law is that it requires the possession of the firearm to be legal at both the beginning of your travel (not a problem for Texans) and t your destination. This is what was used by the trial court to find the traveler guilty in the case mentioned by howdy. They said when he retrieved the bag, it indicated that he had reached his destination. They considered the next day to be the start of a new trip. I do not remember the final disposition of the case, but I think the appeals court upheld it and SCOTUS declined to review it.

I am fairly sure that New York, New Jersey, D.C., Maryland, Massachusetts, California, and Hawaii will also do this if they find you have a gun and you stayed in their jurisdiction. If you were driving, you might get away with a one night stay, but now when flying. More than one night would also indicate that it was one of your destinations.

[Rafe]

The stuff of nightmares. The guy in howdy's story literally had no reasonable recourse, did he? In that beyond-his-control disastrous event of a reroute to LaGuardia, he couldn't remove the gun from his checked luggage and put in a rental locker. The result would have been the same: he got his luggage and stayed in New York. Presumably, the airline wouldn't have put the checked luggage on a different flight and let it continue on to Maine without its passenger, and if that happened it may very well have been illegal--in two different ways--for a friend in Maine to retrieve the luggage for him.

Thank goodness I haven't had to worry about something like that, but does anybody know if the TSA have any provision for it? Can you go them, explain the circumstances, and have them lock-up the firearm and keep it secure until resumption of travel the next day? Lock-up the whole piece of luggage at the airport with TSA or the airline and stop by Walgreens on the way to the hotel for a toothbrush and a comb? Immediately check the luggage onto tomorrow's flight and sleep at the airport?

[jmorris]

The stuff of nightmares. The guy in howdy's story literally had no reasonable recourse, did he? In that beyond-his-control disastrous event of a reroute to LaGuardia, he couldn't remove the gun from his checked luggage and put in a rental locker. The result would have been the same: he got his luggage and stayed in New York. Presumably, the airline wouldn't have put the checked luggage on a different flight and let it continue on to Maine without its passenger, and if that happened it may very well have been illegal--in two different ways--for a friend in Maine to retrieve the luggage for him.

Thank goodness I haven't had to worry about something like that, but does anybody know if the TSA have any provision for it? Can you go them, explain the circumstances, and have them lock-up the firearm and keep it secure until resumption of travel the next day? Lock-up the whole piece of luggage at the airport with TSA or the airline and stop by Walgreens on the way to the hotel for a toothbrush and a comb? Immediately check the luggage onto tomorrow's flight and sleep at the airport?

My first plan would have been to not pick up the luggage, counting on it making the trip without me. Second would have been to pick it up,, rent a vehicle and drive on to Maine. I think it's obvious that he was never warned about checking in in certain states. I talk about that in my classes.

[Rafe]

My first plan would have been to not pick up the luggage, counting on it making the trip without me. Second would have been to pick it up,, rent a vehicle and drive on to Maine. I think it's obvious that he was never warned about checking in in certain states. I talk about that in my classes.

I wonder what the personal liabilities would be if that piece of luggage was left at the carousel, with a firearm legally inside it, but the bag didn't make it to the destination and was eventually stolen from the maze of what must be the LaGuardia lost luggage area (remember the crate with the Ark of the Covenant in it at the end of the first Indiana Jones movie ), and was then used in commission of a violent crime in New York City. Maybe no ultimate liability, but I'll bet there'd still be some 'splainin' to do. Plus a lost gun. But lost in NY is worse than lost in a Texas boating accident.

The car rental sounds like maybe the best option, but I assume you'd need to be on absolute best behavior and obey all traffic regulations in a strange state (in more ways than one) with strange-to-you geography and streets and signs. Might get out of having to go before an ADA or a magistrate, but if you get pulled over for a traffic violation there could still be a lot of 'splainin' to do about how/why you're in a NY rental car with NY plates and in possession of an "illegal" firearm. Especially if the gendarme sees the hated Texas driver's license and asks if you have any guns in the car

Absolute best plan: entirely avoid those certain states. Before I stopped traveling much for work back around 2008, I always left the EDC at home (unless it was a drive to a friendly neighbor state, which it seldom was). But as I've gotten older I've become less personally inclined to disarm. Just ask how Bob Lee feels about having extended his business trip from Miami to San Francisco a couple of days in order to visit friends in an upscale neighborhood. Not sure nowadays what it would take to get me to take a plane into any of those "certain states" or DC. Now, with the recent reliability of timely air travel and such low probabilities of flight cancellations <cough cough> y'all have me concerned about the notion of even having to fly over one of those states.

[howdy]

That would not work either. Once the bag is sent around the pickup carousel it is in an unsecure place and would have to be rechecked. The only option is for the airline to keep the bag back in the back luggage area.

[powerboatr]

then you have some over zealous DA and TSA
they watch for flights from states with good gun laws and if a plane lands due to re-route..they pounce on you as you get your bag and do a SAFETY inspection
i can see it now on an episode of NCIS or like lefty shows

[03Lightningrocks]

I am thinking we have to all start thinking that leaving Texas is equivalent to flying to another country.

[jmorris]

That would not work either. Once the bag is sent around the pickup carousel it is in an unsecure place and would have to be rechecked. The only option is for the airline to keep the bag back in the back luggage area.

It's been a few years since I've flown with a firearm*. My last trip upon arrival, both ends, Southwest held the bag in the security office because it contained a "high value" item. Do they not do that anymore?

*Retired. If I can't take the trailer I mostly don't go.

[srothstein]

That would not work either. Once the bag is sent around the pickup carousel it is in an unsecure place and would have to be rechecked. The only option is for the airline to keep the bag back in the back luggage area.

It's been a few years since I've flown with a firearm*. My last trip upon arrival, both ends, Southwest held the bag in the security office because it contained a "high value" item. Do they not do that anymore?

*Retired. If I can't take the trailer I mostly don't go.

The last time I flew, about three years ago, SW just put it on the carousel like all the other luggage.

[carlson1]

I guess if you are pulling a 5th wheel RV and having a gun in that would not be considered as keeping a firearm in your residence? There are a couple of places we have always wanted to go, but because of these communist States we will never see the beautiful country.

[jmorris]

I guess if you are pulling a 5th wheel RV and having a gun in that would not be considered as keeping a firearm in your residence? There are a couple of places we have always wanted to go, but because of these communist States we will never see the beautiful country.

If traveling to those states it doesn't matter if the firearm is in your residence, if it's not on the approved list and/or you don't have that state firearm owner identification card you can't have the firearm. In a few of those you might get by with the firearm separated from the ammo and the firearm in a lockbox. You'd have to dig into the state laws to see.