Loaded guns found in vacation rentals and hotels

[Rosco Benson]

I have a friend who puts a weaponlight and extended magazine on his carry pistol at bedtime and takes this stuff off upon arising. After checking out of our motel and getting a couple hundred miles down the road, he became convinced that he had left the extended magazine behind when he put the normal capacity mag in it for carry.


A call back to the motel (in a tiny prairie) caused a good deal of confusion when he asked if they could have the maid check the room for a magazine he'd left behind. The motel owner was happy to help, but thought he was referring to a paper READING magazine. I finally said "tell him it's a CLIP....that had bullets in it....for a PISTOL". NOW the motel owner knew what had gone missing. We had reservations there on the return leg, and were just going to have him hold it there.


No dice. No mag was found. It turned out to be in my friend's luggage.

[Outpost75]

SOP following these types of incidents in my day was a 10-day rip and $500 fine back when that was real money.

[lwt16]

Car rental companies call in weekly with guns found in their vehicles.

Happens all the time. Hotels are the same.

Regards.

[AKDoug]

We don't call the cops. We just call the customer. It's only happened once in our VRBO, but it won't be the last as we are in a rural area with bears. People get in a hurry and shit happens.

Even funnier is that weed is legal up here. The wife has found quite a bit of product in our place while cleaning. Nobody is smoking it in the house, so it seems like they are leaving it behind since they can't fly home with it. Why they don't just toss it in the trash is beyond me.

[BigD]

I don't begrudge LEO's who leave behind their sidearm after a bathroom visit. However I'm not happy the consideration they get isn't equally applied to the civilian population. I've seen plenty of reports of cops leaving a pistol on a toilet and nothing came of it. Yet a regular Joe does the same and it is a way different outcome.

Did it occur to you that the LEOs received internal disciplinary action that you aren’t privy to?

What punishment does regular Joe typically receive? I spent a grand total of 3 minutes googling it, and found references to having misdemeanor charges dropped and another reference to a regular Joe receiving a stern warning. (That wasn’t an exhaustive search so you can probably find examples of civilians being charged.)


https://www.fosters.com/news/2018070...ortable-toilet


(The Google search mostly returned instances of LEOs leaving pistols behind. Lots of papers carried the story about Cameron’s bodyguard leaving his pistol in the plane bathroom. )

Ask @lwt16 what happens to the regular Joe’s that leave pistols in rental cars and hotel rooms? I don’t know what he’ll say, but I’m getting some days on the beach if I do that with a work pistol. And it might make the papers if I do it depending on who finds it. Same if I let mine get stolen. I face repercussions that regular Joe wouldn’t for improperly securing it.

[JohnO]

Did it occur to you that the LEOs received internal disciplinary action that you aren’t privy to?

What punishment does regular Joe typically receive? I spent a grand total of 3 minutes googling it, and found references to having misdemeanor charges dropped and another reference to a regular Joe receiving a stern warning. (That wasn’t an exhaustive search so you can probably find examples of civilians being charged.)


https://www.fosters.com/news/2018070...ortable-toilet


(The Google search mostly returned instances of LEOs leaving pistols behind. Lots of papers carried the story about Cameron’s bodyguard leaving his pistol in the plane bathroom. )

Here in CT you will lose your carry permit and most likely have all your firearms confiscated. Failure to secure your weapon. You don't even have to get charged. Although you probably will get charged. What CT has is a "Suitability Clause" and suitability is not defined it is up to the interpretation of the issuing authority or the court to find you unsuitable. (See below.)

Sec. 29-37i. (Formerly Sec. 29-37c). Responsibilities re storage of firearms. No person shall store or keep any firearm, as defined in section 53a-3, on any premises under such person's control if such person knows or reasonably should know that (1) a minor is likely to gain access to the firearm without the permission of the parent or guardian of the minor, (2) a resident of the premises is ineligible to possess a firearm under state or federal law, or (3) a resident of the premises poses a risk of imminent personal injury to himself or herself or to other individuals, unless such person (A) keeps the firearm in a securely locked box or other container or in a manner which a reasonable person would believe to be secure, or (B) carries the firearm on his or her person or within such close proximity thereto that such person can readily retrieve and use the firearm as if such person carried the firearm on his or her person. For the purposes of this section, “minor” means any person under the age of eighteen years.


I've seen the many of the cases before the CT Board of Firearms Permit Examiners. Failure to secure a weapon gets quite a few folks before the board. If a permit is revoked today the next date in the queue is December 2023 and that date will push out to 2024 soon as Dec. 2023 fills. https://portal.ct.gov/bfpe



Most recent situation I am familiar with: A good friend told me one of his contractor buddies' son was arrested when his gun was stolen from his car. This 29 year old was going into a prohibited location. He chose to leave his gun in the car. When he returned from the location his car was broken into and his gun was stolen. He immediately (as required per the law) reported his gun stolen. He was arrested. His permit revoked and authorities came for his other guns. Had he placed the gun in the locked glove box or a dedicated lock box he would have been golden. He didn't! No matter that a plastic glove box with a lock that could be defeated with a nail file would have conformed to the letter of the law.

SUITABILITY

In a recent Superior Court case, the court quoted an 1882 Connecticut Supreme Court opinion stating that suitability “is not defined by the law so that its application can be determined as mere matter of eye-sight, but it is left necessarily to be determined solely by the judgment of the commissioners based upon inquiry and information. And that the particular manner of exercising such judgment cannot be controlled by any court is too obvious to require the citation of any authorities” (Lepri v. Board of Firearms Permit Examiners, No. CV 96-0055714, Sept. 29, 1998, citing Batters v. Dunning, 49 Conn. 479 (1882)).

One court dealing with suitability stated that the government's interest “is to protect the safety of the general public from individuals whose conduct has shown them to be lacking the essential character or temperament necessary to be entrusted with a weapon” (Rabbit v. Leonard, 36 Conn. Sup. 108, 115 (1979)). Another court stated that the “personal views of the agency members are necessarily a factor in the decision, and similar facts and circumstances will have varying probative force in different cases,” but the facts found by the board should provide a logical inference that the person poses some danger to the public if allowed to carry a weapon outside the home or business (Nicholson v. Board of Firearms Permit Examiners, No. CV 940541048, Sept. 28, 1995).

[msstate56]

Sounds like CT is on the NFE list.

[CleverNickname]

Most recent situation I am familiar with: A good friend told me one of his contractor buddies' son was arrested when his gun was stolen from his car. This 29 year old was going into a prohibited location. He chose to leave his gun in the car. When he returned from the location his car was broken into and his gun was stolen. He immediately (as required per the law) reported his gun stolen. He was arrested. His permit revoked and authorities came for his other guns. Had he placed the gun in the locked glove box or a dedicated lock box he would have been golden. He didn't! No matter that a plastic glove box with a lock that could be defeated with a nail file would have conformed to the letter of the law.

Just out of curiosity, if a car's locked glove box counts as a locked container to satisfy the law's requirements, why doesn't the car itself count as a locked container?

[lwt16]

Typically the owner is contacted to come pick up their property. I am not aware of any criminal charges ever being filed unless the person was a convicted felon or something like that.

[HeavyDuty]

Sounds like CT is on the NFE list.

I think there may be something in the water around here - MA is allegedly much the same.