Legality of taking possession of found weapons?

[jcabin]

thanks for the responses

[knight0334]

This is a damn good topic for GunLawyer001.

[GunLawyer001]

"Found" property has to be turned in, and is covered by the escheat laws.

"Abandoned" property is different. I don't have much experience in that area.

There may be taxes involved for windfalls, too.

"Found guns" are potentially controlled both by the escheat laws and by the UFA. Since the UFA only prohibits the act of the transferor with regard to handguns, and we don't have registration in PA, from a practical viewpoint I'd mostly be concerned that an abandoned handgun is stolen. With no paper trail, nobody else to blame, I'd hate to have a few stolen handguns in my house when the police are looking to pin something on me.

As for long guns, if there's an argument that the bank takes title to the house and becomes responsible for the disposition of the contents, then perhaps the bank is liable for any unauthorized transfers; but the bank would have to be aware of the firearms.

Interesting issue, I expect it comes up at storage unit sales, except that I've heard that a lot of storage unit managers help themselves to the interesting items prior to the public sale.

[Exbiker]

My nephew does that part time and I asked him. He said the owner is very particular about recording serial numbers and from there he didn`t know but they are not kept by the company. Everything else goes in a dumpster or is salvaged.