Non-citizen gun ownership question

C

choochboost

New member
I am a Canadian citizen legally living and working in southern California since 2000. I go to the range at least three times a month but since I don't own firearms, I must rent or shoot with friends. I have not been able to determine whether or not I can legally own a firearm here in the US. Can anyone help me? Does anyone know how the law would apply to me?
 
I am in the same situation as i am a Canadian living in virginia and want to get one. What you are first going to have to do is figure out if you are a non-immigrant or not. Basicly are you allowed to permanatly live in the US or not. If you are eg have a green card, you can buy pretty much like a citizen would but they will need to get information from your green card. If you are not allowed to permanatly live in the US then you cannot own firearms or ammunition execpt for a few specific cercumstances, the first being that you get a waiver from the DOJ, the next being that you have a hunting license/waiver for a US state, and lastly if you are a official rep, official or distinguished visitor of a foreign goverment that has been accredited by the US goverment/state department.

basicly for most of us it boils down to either get a hunting license or get a waiver from the DOJ. Now i dont know about the local or state laws for where you live, that is something that you will have to look into. These are just the federal rules. Also when they do the criminal check they will check with the INS to make sure that you are in the country legaly, so that could make it take a bit longer.

hope this helps you out some

pyro_
 
pyro gave you a good summary.

I was in the same situation... If you are a permanent resident (green card) you have almost all the rights of a citizen (apart from the taxation without representation part...). The only difference is that FFL dealers generally insist on seeing proofs (e.g. utility bills) that you have resided in the state for more than three months (this even if you have bought one gun a month for the last six months in the same gunshop...). I believe that you also cannot own a class III weapon (automatic, silencer).

If you are not a permanent resident but simply a legal alien on a VISA, things are somewhat more complicated. People in this category are forbidden to own guns and ammunition unless they can claim one of the exceptions. The most likely (and the one that I used years ago) is that of having a hunting license (I had one in the state of residence). It would appear that having a hunting license makes it legal to own even firearms that you wouldn't/couldn't use for hunting...go figure...

Note all this is at the federal level. Individual states may place additional restrictions on non-citizens and I wouldn't be surprised if this was the case in California.

<edited to add ackn to pyro>
 
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