I recently received a question from a young man who was 18 years old and interested in getting a handgun.  He wanted to know if it was OK to carry openly.  He also wanted to know if the fact that he had been charged with two misdemeanors would affect his right to own a firearm. 

Finally, there is a convicted felon living in his household, making it illegal for him to have a firearm in the home, if that firearm was accessible to the felon.  He was curious about his ability to keep the firearm locked in his car since he could not keep it at home.

Since there are three distinct questions, let’s take them one by one. 

With respect to his firearms ownership, in Arizona it is perfectly legal to possess a handgun if you are 18 years old or older.  Since a person under 21 years old cannot purchase a gun from a federally licensed firearms dealer, the firearm would have to be acquired using a private party sale or would have to be a gift from someone legally permitted to own a firearm.

Arizona is an open carry state, so it would be perfectly legal for anyone that can legally possess a firearm to carry openly in any place where it is legal to have a firearm.

The fact that he had been charged with two misdemeanors really doesn’t apply here since neither of them had anything to do with domestic violence.

The fact that he is living in the same home as a convicted felon does have some implications.  Since it is illegal for a person to provide a felon with a firearm or make a firearm accessible to them, it would be very difficult to adequately secure a firearm in the home, making it completely inaccessible to the prohibited possessor.  Storing the firearm in the vehicle presents exactly the same problem as it would be necessary to make sure that the firearm was completely inaccessible to the prohibited possessor.

I wrote a pretty detailed post on dealing with this type of situation a few weeks back.  You can refer to the discussion of how to deal with firearms when living with a prohibited possessor here:

http://arizonaccwpermit.com/2008/07/08/households-with-convicted-felons-and-firearms/

As I said in my earlier post, it is a tough situation to deal with, but one that can be managed under the correct circumstances.

I have recently received a lot of questions about kids and Airsoft guns. The general gist of most questions is: “My kid wants an Airsoft gun since all his friends have them. Should I allow him to have one?” Most of the kids are under 16 and their parents are genuinely conflicted about what to do. As a parent myself, I can completely appreciate their situation.

Here’s the deal with Airsoft. They fire a 6mm plastic pellet. It is about the size of a pea. There are gas powered, spring powered and electric powered versions of both rifles and pistols. The velocity of the pellet varies with the quality of the gun and can be between 100 and 300 feet per second. Accuracy of the better guns is usually quite good, although because of the materials used in construction of the guns, even the more expensive ones will not stand up to hard use.

Here are a couple of things to consider that your kids probably won’t like. First, an Airsoft pistol is not a toy. It is a real, functioning gun. It simply shoots a plastic pellet. At velocities of 130 fps at relatively close ranges (25 ft or less) the plastic pellet will bruise or break bare skin.

I’m trying very hard not to sound like my mother, but the fact is anyone using an Airsoft gun without full eye protection is asking for serious eye injury.

If your child wants to use it for target type shooting and you are willing to get or give him some proper instruction in firearms safety, it possibly wouldn’t be too bad.

More likely I suspect that his friends participate in “skirmishes” or “mock warfare” and shoot at each other. For a 12 y/o that is probably a bad thing. For most kids in the 10-14 y/o age group, they just haven’t figured out that things like this involve potentially hazardous outcomes. It just isn’t “real” to them. Getting them to rigorously follow the safety rules on their own isn’t realistic. This is assuming that they don’t have constant adult supervision.

If you do decide to let them have one, make sure that is has a blaze-orange barrel tip. This is a federal requirement, but lots of kids break them off as it makes the gun look less ‘real’. This is exactly why it needs to be there as otherwise, airsoft guns can look almost exactly like the real thing, causing a lot of confusion potential if law enforcement ever gets involved.

I cannot stress the importance of full face and eye protection. Safety glasses are NOT enough. There is a reason that serious paintballers and airsoft warriors use full face protection…despite the fact that it isn’t “cool”.

In training that I give, I use airsoft in ‘force on force’ drills and require that everyone wears a full face paintball style protective mask, long sleeved garment and gloves. With all this protection, people still end up with small bruises and the occasional case of ‘pellet bite’.

For safety info, I have provided you with a link to the NRA website that has some good info for both children and parents. You should look for the link to “Parents Guide to Gun Safety”. Please visit this link as I am providing it so that I don’t have to retype this very complete discussion of firearms safety. Here’s the link: http://www.nrahq.org/education/guide.asp

I guess the final factor to consider is the level of maturity and responsibility of your child. If they are level headed and willing to accept guidelines and responsibly adhere to those guidelines, they might be a safe user of Airsoft. I would only point out that no retailer will sell Airsoft guns to anyone under 18. There is a good reason for that and it generally has to do with maturity and responsibility.