At 10:52 PM -0500 9/23/04, Paul Barnett wrote:
18 USC 930: Possession of firearms and dangerous weapons in Federal facilities....
(a) Except as provided in subsection (d), whoever knowingly possesses or causes to be present a firearm or other dangerous weapon in a Federal facility (other than a Federal court facility), or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 1 year, or both.
.....
(d) Subsection (a) shall not apply to -
(3) the lawful carrying of firearms or other dangerous weapons in a Federal facility incident to hunting or other lawful purposes.
[remainder deleted]
My question is: why doesn't item (3) of subsection (d) exempt CHL holders? It's apparently intended to address hunting on federal land, but is there a specific doctrine that would prevent it from being applied to CHL holders?
Guesses: (1) CHL wasn't widespread when enacted, or (2) Congress didn't have enough brains to worry about that sort of thing. I mean... "incident to .., other lawful purposes"? What does that mean? In a state which allows unlimited open carry, as most do, isn't virtually any carry incident to a lawful purpose? Conversely, couldn't it be argued that since carrying in a facility is unlawful, that no such carry can be incident to a lawful purpose?
The most sense I can make of it would be that if a person carries in a federal facility, they can be arrested, but if they can show they didn't mean to facilitate a jail break, they should be acquitted. There is at least a 10% chance that Congress had that understanding when they drafted the statute. Or at least that their staffers did.
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