Handgun discovered under seat of used Toyota after driving home from Fl

B

BK_NH

New Member
Jurisdiction
New Hampshire
I have one of those stories that you read about. I purchased a 2016 Toyota Camry from a Toyota dealership in Florida using Cars.com. I live in NH. On Wednesday, I flew down, went to the dealership, completed the transaction and started my 3 day drive home to New Hampshire.

I arrived home in the evening, parked the vehicle after a greeting from the family and went to bed. In the morning when we were all excited and looking at the car, I started cleaning out the car of typical road trip debris. When looking under the drivers seat, I discovered a loaded 9mm semi-auto handgun.

I immediately unloaded it and called my local police who came by and did a check on the S/N to make sure it did not have a "history". He left it with me.

My stomach is still in knots knowing I drove unwittingly through 9 other states with a loaded pistol under my seat. From what I understand of New York, Maryland and Massachusetts if I had been caught with this I would been arrested immediately.

Even more disturbing is the thought that if I did not discover this and some kid in the back did, what tragedy may have occurred.

After reporting this to the dealer, they contacted the previous owner who says its his and to please arrange shipping, etc. ( I would of course not do anything like that without tracking via my police and FFL etc after verifying ownership.) Can you believe that a responsible owner could "lose" a handgun and not go searching for it??

Of course, the dealership wants to sweep this under the rug as fast as possible.

My questions:
1.) What should I do from here? I hate to reward a irresponsible gun owner by giving back the gun, but it may still be his legally.
2.) What risks was I personally under here. Scares the bejeebers out of me to think about what may have happened.

Thanks for any advice.
 
What "might have happened" has no relevance.

Apparently NH gives you the right to own and possess a handgun in your home without any regulation so nothing bad will happen to you.

I'd be the last person to defend a car dealer (I hate them - they are such liars and thieves) but, in this case, the dealer did nothing wrong.

If you don't want to be involved in returning it to the owner, turn it over to your local police, get a receipt showing the serial number, send a copy of the receipt to the owner and you are done with it.

If you want to be nice about it, find out from a local FFL what it would cost for the FFL to ship the handgun to an FFL where the owner lives, then have the owner send you a USPS money order for the fees plus extra for your time. If he balks at that, then turn it over to the police.
 
OK, thanks for the advice.

Am I legally obliged to return it? i.e. - when one buys a used car, who then owns the contents?
 
Last edited:
The gun is likely registered to someone else. It is not yours to keep.
Your best way out of this is to hand it over to local law enforcement as found property. They would send a letter to the registered owner (who might not be the same owner of the car who has been contacted) and handle the return or destruction of the weapon.
 
mightymoose said:
The gun is likely registered to someone else. It is not yours to keep.
Your best way out of this is to hand it over to local law enforcement as found property. They would send a letter to the registered owner (who might not be the same owner of the car who has been contacted) and handle the return or destruction of the weapon.
Click to expand...

I like that better.
 
BK_NH said:
Am I legally obliged to return it? i.e. - when one buys a used car, who then owns the contents?
Click to expand...

As suggested, turn the weapon over to the police and be sure you get a property receipt for it.

In addition to everything that Mighty Moose related to you, that weapon could have been involved in a bodily injury crime, or even a murder.

The serial number ALONE wouldn't reveal that startling revelation.
 
What "road debris" was INSIDE the car?

I agree - at this point I wouldn't have anything to do with it. Turn it over to the police (you should have done that when they showed up) and let the owner deal with it.

I would also get the serial number and report it to the licensing authority in Florida (I don't even know if FL requires pistol licenses). Maybe the idiot will get his taken away.
 
Just take it to a gun shop..... they can ship it out to the owner. The bullets can't travel with it unless it stays on ground shipping the whole way. Failure to return it could result in a big issue with you.
 
Disabled Vet said:
Just take it to a gun shop..... they can ship it out to the owner. The bullets can't travel with it unless it stays on ground shipping the whole way. Failure to return it could result in a big issue with you.
Click to expand...

You can't just drop a hand gun off at a dealer and have it taken care of without a major hassle.

The best thing to do is let the police deal with it.

To be honest, the OP shouldn't have even touched it to begin with - when he called the police he should have just insisted they take it away as it wasn't his.
 
Highwayman said:
You can't just drop a hand gun off at a dealer and have it taken care of without a major hassle.

The best thing to do is let the police deal with it.

To be honest, the OP shouldn't have even touched it to begin with - when he called the police he should have just insisted they take it away as it wasn't his.
Click to expand...

Based on current laws..... The person can bring the firearm to a local gun shop if they do shipping. The person supplys the gun shop (FFL) the information for the gun shop (FFL) to which the firearm is going to. Once the firearm arrives at the gun shop (FFL) its being shipped to. They will have the person receiving the firearm fill out form 4473. Once the ATF approves the transfer the person will be given the firearm. Now here is a reason of going thru the gunshop (FFL). The local PD came and ran the SN of the gun. It's not stolen and the person who auto it was states they left it in the auto they traded in.
 
Why should the OP jump through hoops? The owner was negligent leaving it in a car which he disposed of. Let the owner jump though the hoops to get his gun back. I wouldn't do a damned thing to return the hand gun. Turn it into the local PD and be done with it.
 
1. Dropping it off at the PD. As Highwayman said, not my problem.

2. "Road Debris" = empty water bottles, coffee cups and things accumulated during a good old fashioned road trip :)

Thanks for the advice to all.
 

Share this page

Get a free case review from a lawyer
Back
Top