Attorney Kirk Tarman Explains How A Weapons Charge May Enhance The Sentencing In The Criminal Case

Ray Hrdlicka – Host – Attorneys.Media

“So essentially, by weapon charges, it’s a firearm, it’s an enhancement, I would assume to the underlying crime, right?”

Kirk Tarman– Criminal Defense Attorney – San Bernardino County, CA

“Sometimes, I mean, most of the time it’s drugs and guns, but a lot of the time, I have a number of cases where you just have a guy who came back from hiking, he’s got his pistol in his backpack, and he forgot to unload it, or take the magazine out and separate them. You have to have them separate from each other, one in a locked container, and not in the same basic area of the vehicle. And he forgot to do that, and they charged him with basically transporting a firearm illegally.

So, I have a few of those and there’s, you know, yeah, it’s kind of absurd. These are law abiding citizens who just happen to forget that they had a gun on them at the time, or…and it was illegal. But most of the time it is an enhancement.

You’ve got, like, somebody who’s got really just drugs, can be even personal use drugs, and then they got a gun around, and then they put those together, and those are automatic felonies and things like that. So it is generally used as an enhancement, but it can also be an actual substantive charge in and of itself.”