{"id":28540,"date":"2025-01-30T13:36:52","date_gmt":"2025-01-30T13:36:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/\/?p=28540"},"modified":"2025-01-30T13:38:37","modified_gmt":"2025-01-30T13:38:37","slug":"what-possession-firearm-airport-california-penal-code","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/news\/what-possession-firearm-airport-california-penal-code\/","title":{"rendered":"Caught with a Firearm at a California Airport, Pt.1: Understanding Charges &#038; Penalties"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-28543\" src=\"https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Carrying-a-Loaded-Firearm-Criminal-Lawyer-San-Diego.jpg\" alt=\"Carrying a Loaded Firearm Criminal Lawyer San Diego\" width=\"1000\" height=\"501\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Carrying-a-Loaded-Firearm-Criminal-Lawyer-San-Diego.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Carrying-a-Loaded-Firearm-Criminal-Lawyer-San-Diego-300x150.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Carrying-a-Loaded-Firearm-Criminal-Lawyer-San-Diego-768x385.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/>For reasons that are beyond justified, The Golden State has borderline-extreme rules and regulations when it comes to weapons at its airports &#8211; and breaking even a single one can lead to hefty fines and even incarceration.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As such, if you\u2019re caught <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">carrying a (loaded) firearm<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> at a California airport, you will need to fully understand the implications of these charges. This guide will provide the basics, but <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/\/firearms\/carrying-a-loaded-firearm\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">it is highly recommended to enlist the help of an excellent<\/span><\/a> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">criminal lawyer in San Diego,<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> as being sentenced for this offense carries severe repercussions.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What does possession of a weapon mean?<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Before we get into the airport-specific cases, let\u2019s first define the \u201cpossession of a weapon\u201d, specifically a firearm. California law defines two instances of possession of a weapon:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Direct possession<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> entails holding a weapon or having it on one\u2019s person (i.e., in a holster, pocket, etc.).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Constructive possession<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> means having the ability to exercise immediate control over a weapon, even if it is not in the person\u2019s direct possession of a weapon (e.g. when the weapon is stored in a suitcase).<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now we can address specific instances of the \u201cweapon\u201d being a (loaded) firearm.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What is the penal code 171.5 B in California?<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">California <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/leginfo.legislature.ca.gov\/faces\/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=PEN&amp;sectionNum=171.5.\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Penal Code \u00a7171.5<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is the primary piece of legislation that criminalizes possession of a weapon at any type of passenger vessel terminal. Subdivision (b) (i.e., CA \u00a7171.5(b) PC) specifically makes it unlawful to bring any weapon (firearms included) to the areas beyond the TSA checkpoints, otherwise known as \u201csterile areas\u201d of the airport.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Failure to comply with these requirements can result in fines of up to $1,000, imprisonment in a county jail for up to 6 months, or both. However, it must be noted that these provisions are cumulative, pursuant to CA \u00a7171.5(g) PC.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This means that the potential sentence can be compounded by the application of other laws, specifically Penal Code sections \u00a725850 and \u00a730605, as well as with the Federal Code 49 U.S.C. \u00a746505.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What is the Penal Code 25850 in California?<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">CA \u00a725850 PC makes it a crime to carry a <\/span><b>loaded<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> firearm on one\u2019s person in any public space and, especially, in any public space within a prohibited area &#8211; in this case, any part of the airport. Under this statute, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/\/news\/what-happens-accidental-gun-firearm-tsa-airport\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">carrying a loaded weapon into an airport &#8211; even unintentionally<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> &#8211; can result in charges under this section, cumulative with the CA \u00a7171.5 PC.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What is the penal code for machine gun in California?<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">California Penal Code \u00a730605 focuses specifically on the possession of assault weapons or .50 BMG rifles. Under this section, it is illegal to possess these weapons, unless specifically authorized under California law. Without this authorization, anyone caught with an assault or .50 BMG weapon could face additional charges (again, cumulative with the aforementioned ones).<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What are the federal implications for firearms at the airport?<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Federal Code 49 U.S.C. \u00a7 46505 prohibits bringing or attempting to bring a loaded firearm onto an aircraft &#8211; intentionally or unintentionally. Violation of this law can result in hefty fines under Title 18 U.S.C., up to 10 years of imprisonment, or both &#8211; if no death occurs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Otherwise, the imprisonment term can be increased to 20 to life. It is critical to note that the Federal Code applies independently of California\u2019s Penal Code, meaning that the person can be charged on both counts.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Which <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">criminal lawyer near me in San Diego<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> can best help me if I\u2019m charged with <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">carrying a loaded firearm<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> at the airport?<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Whether you\u2019re seeking legal protection for possession of a firearm at the airport case, need fierce representation after <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/\/news\/what-carjacking-definition-california-penal-code-215\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">being charged with carjacking<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, or require an adept team to undertake <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/\/news\/what-penalty-prison-time-carjacking-california\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">defense for any other type of criminal charges<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> &#8211; you\u2019re in the right place.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Monder Criminal Lawyer Group has long been the preferred choice of partner, owing to the years of experience and strategic advocacy we provide to our clients. Contact us today to schedule a consultation at our headquarters near <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Horton_Plaza_(shopping_mall)\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Horton Plazza<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">! <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For reasons that are beyond justified, The Golden State has borderline-extreme rules and regulations when it comes to weapons at its airports &#8211; and breaking even a single one can lead to hefty fines and even incarceration. As such, if you\u2019re caught carrying a (loaded) firearm at a California airport, you will need to fully [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28543,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Loaded Firearm at the Airport, Pt.1 | Criminal Lawyer in San Diego<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Which California and Federal laws govern unlawful possession of a firearm at an airport? Keep reading to familiarize yourself with charges and penalties.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/news\/what-possession-firearm-airport-california-penal-code\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Loaded Firearm at the Airport, Pt.1 | Criminal Lawyer in San Diego\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Which California and Federal laws govern unlawful possession of a firearm at an airport? Keep reading to familiarize yourself with charges and penalties.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/news\/what-possession-firearm-airport-california-penal-code\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Monder Criminal Lawyer Group CA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-01-30T13:36:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-01-30T13:38:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Carrying-a-Loaded-Firearm-Criminal-Lawyer-San-Diego.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"501\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Loaded Firearm at the Airport, Pt.1 | Criminal Lawyer in San Diego","description":"Which California and Federal laws govern unlawful possession of a firearm at an airport? Keep reading to familiarize yourself with charges and penalties.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/news\/what-possession-firearm-airport-california-penal-code\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Loaded Firearm at the Airport, Pt.1 | Criminal Lawyer in San Diego","og_description":"Which California and Federal laws govern unlawful possession of a firearm at an airport? Keep reading to familiarize yourself with charges and penalties.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/news\/what-possession-firearm-airport-california-penal-code\/","og_site_name":"Monder Criminal Lawyer Group CA","article_published_time":"2025-01-30T13:36:52+00:00","article_modified_time":"2025-01-30T13:38:37+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1000,"height":501,"url":"https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Carrying-a-Loaded-Firearm-Criminal-Lawyer-San-Diego.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"admin","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"admin","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/news\/what-possession-firearm-airport-california-penal-code\/","url":"https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/news\/what-possession-firearm-airport-california-penal-code\/","name":"Loaded Firearm at the Airport, Pt.1 | Criminal Lawyer in San Diego","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/news\/what-possession-firearm-airport-california-penal-code\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/news\/what-possession-firearm-airport-california-penal-code\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Carrying-a-Loaded-Firearm-Criminal-Lawyer-San-Diego.jpg","datePublished":"2025-01-30T13:36:52+00:00","dateModified":"2025-01-30T13:38:37+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/#\/schema\/person\/7f4616cba715a487c1605b93af866a74"},"description":"Which California and Federal laws govern unlawful possession of a firearm at an airport? Keep reading to familiarize yourself with charges and penalties.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/news\/what-possession-firearm-airport-california-penal-code\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/news\/what-possession-firearm-airport-california-penal-code\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/news\/what-possession-firearm-airport-california-penal-code\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Carrying-a-Loaded-Firearm-Criminal-Lawyer-San-Diego.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Carrying-a-Loaded-Firearm-Criminal-Lawyer-San-Diego.jpg","width":1000,"height":501,"caption":"Carrying a Loaded Firearm Criminal Lawyer San Diego"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/news\/what-possession-firearm-airport-california-penal-code\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Caught with a Firearm at a California Airport, Pt.1: Understanding Charges &#038; Penalties"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/","name":"Monder Criminal Lawyer Group CA","description":"Just another WordPress site","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/#\/schema\/person\/7f4616cba715a487c1605b93af866a74","name":"admin","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/1bcef7789a7964d3c26ef1f432360330493f8432ad76de0170d901f2e19946d3?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/1bcef7789a7964d3c26ef1f432360330493f8432ad76de0170d901f2e19946d3?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"admin"},"url":"https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/news\/author\/admin\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28540"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28547,"href":"https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28540\/revisions\/28547"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monderlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}