In article , HeyBub wrote:
Don Klipstein wrote:

Does this only mean that use of an air gun to commit a crime makes
the crime a "gun crime", or is it worse?


It's the same crime. The determination is in the "eye of the beholder." If
the victim thinks you have a gun, as far as the law is concerned, you have a
gun.

A finger-in-the-jacket is an "armed robbery" if the victim believes you have
a gun. If you pass a note to the bank teller saying "Give me the money or
I'll shoot you," you have committed an "armed robbery."

In the specific case of New Jersey, however, it doesn't make any difference
at all:

"Firearm or firearms" means any handgun, rifle, shotgun, machine gun,
assault firearm, automatic or semi-automatic rifle, or any gun, device or
instrument in the nature of a weapon from which may be fired or ejected any
solid projectile, ball, slug, pellet, missile or bullet, or any gas, vapor
or other noxious thing, by means of a cartridge or shell or by the action of
an explosive or the igniting of flammable or explosive substances. It shall
also include, without limitation, any firearm which is in the nature of an
air gun, spring gun or pistol or other weapon of a similar nature in which
the propelling force is a spring, elastic band, carbon dioxide, compressed
or other gas, or vapor, air or compressed air, or is ignited by compressed
air, and ejecting a bullet or missile smaller than three-eighths of an inch
in diameter, with sufficient force to injure a person.

I think rubber-band guns are okay.

So it sounds to me that in NJ, committing a crime that violates state
laws with a BB gun amounts to committing a gun crime. That sounds fair to
me.

Meanwhile, it appears to me that a BB gun that resembles a rifle is no
worse regulated or restricted in NJ than a real rifle is.

And it appears to me that the lifetime firearm purchase permit that NJ
requires probably applies as stated by Wiki to pistols, rifles and
shotguns - as in "real guns" as opposed to everything that if used to
commit a crime in NJ would make the crime a "gun crime".

- Don Klipstein )