Bel Air Gun Crime Lawyer
Professional Defense of Firearm Charges in Maryland
Maryland has strict laws in place regulating firearm ownership. Not just anyone can carry a concealed handgun legally, or even own a firearm at all–such as felons. Specific types of guns are illegal outright, such as short barreled shot guns (also called sawed off shotguns) and short barreled rifles. If you have been charged with any type of firearm offense in Maryland, you need an experienced attorney at your side. However, just because the maximum penalties are very strict does not mean that all defendants are locked up for years behind bars. With experienced legal counsel, there is a good chance that you can have the charges dropped or prison time drastically reduced.
In Baltimore, approximately one in four gun charges is dropped before the defendant goes to trial, according to the Baltimore Sun, and prison time and fines are usually a fraction of what the maximum penalties are. The Bel Air gun crime lawyers of Schlaich & Thompson Chartered are here to offer professional defense in your time of need.
Concealed Carry in Maryland
You may have a license to own a handgun, but walking down the street with it tucked under your belt is not necessarily legal. According to Maryland § 4-203, you cannot wear, carry, or transport a concealed or unconcealed handgun on or about your person unless you have a permit to do so. Additional offenses include:
- Carrying a handgun on school property;
- Carrying a handgun on a public road, parking lot, airway, waterway, or highway within a vehicle;
- Carrying a handgun with the deliberate intention of harming or killing another.
A violation of this statute may result in a misdemeanor charge and between 30 days and three years in prison. Multiple time offenders, on the other hand, face up to 10 years in prison. A third violation requires a mandatory minimum of three years behind bars, again with a maximum of 10. If you have a handgun or other firearm on you during the commission of a violent crime, even if the gun was not welded or revealed, your prison sentence can be increased to 20 years. However, this statute may not apply if you are transporting an unloaded and holstered handgun from the place where you bought it, to one of your residences to another, or to or from a repair shop.
Other Illegal Weapons
Also illegal in the state of Maryland, no matter if you have a gun permit or not, are the following:
- All types of assault pistols;
- Shotguns, pistols, and rifles with a capacity of over 10 rounds
- Certain Semi-automatic centerfire rifles, such as those with a flash suppressor or grenade launcher;
- Shotguns with a revolving cylinder; and
- Magazines over 10 rounds.
Call a Bel Air Gun Crime Lawyer at Once
There are many options for defense of weapons charges in Maryland. For example, if the handgun that you were found with was discovered during an illegal search and seizure, the charges must be dropped. We implore you to call the attorneys of Schlaich & Thompson Chartered for criminal defense at 410-838-0004.
