Laws to transfer ownership

[Five.House.Diver]

Hello all, I am new to this forum. I have a question regarding the process of transferring ownership of several hand guns that were left to me when my father passed away. They were registered to him. They are currently still at my mothers residence as I am afraid to have them in my possesion without having them legally registered to me. I do have a copy of his death certificate. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Chris

[GunLawyer001]

Hello all, I am new to this forum. I have a question regarding the process of transferring ownership of several hand guns that were left to me when my father passed away. They were registered to him. They are currently still at my mothers residence as I am afraid to have them in my possesion without having them legally registered to me. I do have a copy of his death certificate. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Chris

First, there's no requirement that guns be registered to you in PA, even though the Pa State Police keep a record of transfers. Unless it's stolen, having an unpapered gun is not illegal.

Second, I assume that you can legally possess a firearm, that none of the many prohibitions apply.

The general rule is that long guns can be privately transfered between non-prohibited adults within PA. Handguns need a gun dealer with an FFL.

However, your father could have transferred them to you without any paperwork, there's an exception for transfers between parent/child, grandparent/grandchild, and between spouses.

If your father left a Will, there should be an Executor of his estate. The Executor might want to do the transfer through a local FFL gunshop, but there's a good argument that it's not legally required under the PA Uniform Firearm Act. If your mother is the Executor, she could transfer them to you under the exception, and guns coming from your father's estate are arguably covered by the parent/child exception as well, since the estate stands in his shoes (although there's also an argument that it only covers transfers while the parent is alive.)

The safest approach is for you and the executor to go to a gunshop and do the paperwork, at the cost of perhaps $25 per gun. But it may be legal in this case to just take possession.