Pen. Code, § 16750 · Division 2. DEFINITIONS
Pen. Code, § 16750
Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
(a) As used in Section 25400, “lawful possession of the firearm” means that the person who has possession or custody of the firearm either lawfully owns the firearm or has the permission of the lawful owner or a person who otherwise has apparent authority to possess or have custody of the firearm. A person who takes a firearm without the permission of the lawful owner or without the permission of a person who has lawful custody of the firearm does not have lawful possession of the firearm.
(b) As used in Article 2 (commencing with Section 25850), Article 3 (commencing with Section 25900), and Article 4 (commencing with Section 26000) of Chapter 3 of Division 5 of Title 4, Chapter 6 (commencing with Section 26350) of Division 5 of Title 4, and Chapter 7 (commencing with Section 26400) of Division 5 of Title 4, “lawful possession of the firearm” means that the person who has possession or custody of the firearm either lawfully acquired and lawfully owns the firearm or has the permission of the lawful owner or person who otherwise has apparent authority to possess or have custody of the firearm. A person who takes a firearm without the permission of the lawful owner or without the permission of a person who has lawful custody of the firearm does not have lawful possession of the firearm.
Notes and commentary — not statutory text
History
Amended by Stats. 2012, Ch. 700, Sec. 6. (AB 1527) Effective January 1, 2013.
Source of truth
- Edition
- As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
- Official file
- https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=PEN§ionNum=16750.
- Text hash
- sha256 10b302844f3162aef21bb65103c17e72fa9723f7fbd6d31bf6c5cf7687b28f0e
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- compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section
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