It may dude. The "R" in RAS stands for reasonable. If an officer acting on good faith believes an uncommon handgun to be a modified riffle then they might have RAS that you are carrying a riffle. What is "reasonable" is pretty subjective and like I said, I think an officer can pretty easily convince a judge he "reasonably" believed your EBP was at one time a riffle.
I hope you pull it off though.
Settled Law.
If I say it's not, and he has no evidence to the contrary... His belief is a fabrication of his own imagination and totally unsupported.
I don't deny it could be sticky. But it isn't reasonable to fly in the face of settled law. Your position also presumes the bill to be amended to prohibit long guns. That excuse goes bye-bye.
If a LEO is going to arrest or detain someone on such basis, does he not have to know the law in regard to it? No, not always, you're right. But even dirty cops (or, especially dirty cops) do enough research to cover their asses. If I provide that data and they choose to reject it in favor of willful ignorance, well, damn, even Liberal Activist Judges don't take kindly to that. I've never seen a Judge fail to come down on a LEO for Willful Ignorance. If the matter comes up and the resources are available, they don't get away with refusing reference in order to perform an arrest. That is a HUGE no-no. I mean, HUGE.
I know it's a risk. LEOs can do whatever they want and 'fix it in the report.' I doubt I'd hang around in a place long enough for cops to respond anyway. I'm an in and out, no screwing around 'shopping' kind of guy. I avoid the human race like the plague that it is most of the time. My exposure to them will be limited and brief anyway.
Besides, the definitions of Pistol or Rifle are, last I checked, Federal. Local LEOs have no authority.
It's a Pistol. Sure, they can do some acrobatics to make it out to be otherwise, but as has been proven elsewhere, the acrobats lose.
Would you amend OC Law elsewhere to include only things like Tazers and Mace? I choose the more effective tool with which I am most comfortable. It is light years better than a conventional handgun in virtually every way. Ammo is cheap. I'm very accurate with it... Moving on. I know the odds of being ambushed by politically motivated LEOs with a chip on their shoulder is pretty good. In this town, it's a given. Won't really matter what I carry.
