Handgun while camping in CA?

[TexasRifleman]

I think we can all agree that almost all gun laws are bad, and some states are more restrictive than others. That said, the mission of The High Road is to discuss ways to change them, not bash one state or another. I've removed a couple of state bashing posts, please leave that stuff out, it's not helpful.

 

[ArtP]

The distances change county to county Art P which I demonstrated by citing two of them.

Some are 300 yards or more while others are less.

Art P said:


A loaded handgun mag is nothing if the gun is locked up, but it is something if the gun is not.
Case law basically says that the magazine is considered a concealed handgun if you conceal it while also having immediate use of the handgun.
So for example if you legally open carry unloaded, or legally have the handgun sitting next to you outside a case, and you have a concealed magazine the magazine can be counted as a concealed handgun in violation pf PC12025 if you don't have a concealed carry weapon license.
Open carrying unloaded and have a magazine in your pocket? Criminal violation of PC12025.


However without immediate access to the gun the magazine no longer counts as a concealed gun if it is concealed.
The loaded and detached magazine never counts as a loaded gun under PC12031, but can count as a concealed gun under PC12025 in the above circumstances.

This is based on case law (where I believe the court got the interpretation wrong, but it is the prevailing law of the land since) and is the current legal situation.

I found the following on CalGuns, so you're correct. Notice the part about the empty mag completing the gun. Interesting. I'm not sure if you live in CA or not, but the majority of places the rule is 150 yards. It may look like I'm splitting hairs or attempting to be right. Learning these rules is never ending and complicated - you're witnessing my refinement of my knowledge of the law as I know it, not a competition. Thanks for your input on this.


I've heard concealed magazines are illegal. Is that true?

While there is no code that supports this, there was an appellate case in 1974, People v. Hale, that ruled this way. It ruled that although the firearm in question was not concealed, the magazine was, and that only partial concealment is still concealment, and that the magazine was an "essential component" of the firearm. The logic is tortured beyond belief, but it currently could be used as a persuasive precedent in court. One way to avoid this pitfall is to carry your magazines in belt holsters, so that they match the 12025(f) language of "carried openly in belt holsters". Another option would be to keep an unloaded magazine in the firearm, thereby "completing" the firearm, and invalidating the asinine "essential component" logic.

 

[ArtP]

Zoogster - I've got a question you just may know the answer to. How is "road" defined? Does it have to be marked with a number, be on a map?

Example: The place I frequent the most is a very large reservoir with lake levels that fluctuate as much as 100 vertical feet some years. Off-roaders create trails and roads on the dry lakebed, which later are flooded and essentially disappear. I frequently camp and shoot right next to these "Roads". Do they qualify?

Another... Without looking at the language, you cannot shoot on, across or adjacent to water. How would shooting next to the water be viewed?

 

[Zoogster]

I'm not sure if you live in CA or not, but the majority of places the rule is 150 yards.

State law says firearms must not be discharged within 150 yards of residences, buildings, campsites, occupied areas, recreational areas or domestic livestock, from or across any road. No shooting from a vehicle.

But PC12031 is triggered if you violate county ordinances, state or national park laws, etc The distances given by individual counties can be anything from 50 yards to 300 yard to a mile from a road and everything in between.


For example near lake Havasu in areas that would otherwise be legal to discharge a firearm:

31. You must not discharge or use firearms in California within one
mile of Parker Dam Road. In Arizona, you must not discharge or use
firearms within the Parker Strip Recreation Area.

Riverside and Imperial county prohibit discharge of a firearm within 300 yards of a road (and various other things) for example.

There is 58 counties in California, and they all have a different distance. Violating that distance with a firearm (as defined by the state not the ordinance) would be a violation of state law triggering the statute.
There may be many with 150 yards as the distance, but there is also many with something totally different.


Shooting laws are also changed by zoning, and forest and park boundaries. If you ever get a detailed legal map of an area you will see even in the middle of some desert or forest you get this tiny little box that will a zoned something else, making it a prohibited area even though it otherwise blends right into the area.
Even many national forests have private land, and state or national parks within them, or similar special zoning within portions that change the legality of shooting or possessing firearms.

I know places you can legally shoot in the desert, and travel 50 feet over an imaginary line in the middle of nowhere and be in an illegal area. The only way to even know would be a detailed map and really good navigation skills or a GPS (or a very wide margin of error.)


As far as a road, I know a few areas specifically set up for shooting in various national forests by the forest service in both northern and southern California. They often have a dirt "road" or trail going to them. Sometimes with the shooting actually done after parking on this fire road.

So I could not answer you about what a road is. Even scarier would be like the ordinance I cited earlier in Riverside county that prohibits discharge within 300 yards of a "trail". What is a trail? Any dirt path made by people or a wild animal?
It would probably takes hours of research to be sure what a road is, when it is a road, and when it applies to shooting, and navigating various portions of the penal code and then making sure case law has nothing contrary or more in depth.
Certainly anything marked as a highway or public road would be a road, but further than that?
But I would be fairly comfortable in saying that if it requires a drivers license to drive upon it then it may be a road (but does that make certain "fire roads" on remote mountain ridges roads?) and if it is legal to drive offroad vehicles there then it is probably not a "road" under the law.

So if dirtbikes, ATVs, sand rails, etc without license plates can legally drive the area they are probably not legal "roads". (But I also know some places that are pretty lax with enforcement and let offroad vehicles actually drive on real roads to get to certain places, so just because some are getting away with it...)

 

[KBintheSLC]

I try to abide by the laws of the land wherever possible. However, out in the wilderness, the law does little to protect anything besides the bloated egos of those who created it. If there is a gun ban in place, you always have the option to ignore it due to the high likelihood that it is totally unenforceable out there. Just keep it concealed.