Can I Disguise My Weaponry?

Okay, I know this will vary from state to state (or in my case, province to province), but I was just curious as to the general legality of disguising weapons as opposed to concealing them (which you need a license for).

For example, I have what appears to be a regular cell phone hanging on my belt. A mugger comes up, and I pull it off and as I pretend to hand it to him, flick the blade inside the empty shell up (not springloaded, obviously) and take control.

Now, I don’t want you to focus specifically on that example, just ideas like that in general. Would they still be classified as concealed weapons?

Probably yes but you’d want to get some legal opinions as that will vary state to state.

If you did that with a firearm that puts you into a whole different kettle of fish as you’ve created a federally regulated item, an “any other weapon” or AOW. AOWS were regulated along with machine guns and sound suppressors in the 1934 national firearms act. It’s a catchall category that includes weapons not otherwise defined like certain types of short shotguns that were built that way at the factory and guns that are disguised to look like something else, i.e. pen guns and cane guns. A cell phone gun would be an AOW. A couple of years ago a holster was actually defined as an AOW. It was designed to carry a small derringer and the whole package made it look like a wallet. The kicker was the derringer could be fired without taking it out of the holster making it a “wallet gun.” If the gun could not be fired while in the wallet it would be an ordinary holster.

You can own an AOW and the legal process is the same as owning a machine gun but the transfer tax is only $5 instead of $200.

Yes, they would be concealed. I was looking into getting a sword umbrella and I was told (by the store manager) that I could own it/display it at my house, but I couldn’t take it in public because I could get arrested for it.

How would one get it home then?

Speaker, in Canada weapons offences are uniform across the country, as they’re set out in the Criminal Code, a federal statute. Specifically, see Part II - Firearms and Other Weapons.

In the hypothetical you describe, there are two potential offences: possession of a prohibited weapon, and carrying a concealed weapon.

Section 84(1) of the Code defines a prohibited weapon as follows:

Section 91 makes it an offence to possess a prohibited weapon:

Section 90 makes it an offence to carry a concealed weapon:

The above is not intended as legal advice about your personal situation, but simply to comment on a matter of public interest and discussion. If you need legal advice about your own situation, you should contact a lawyer.

I have no situation, I was just curious, FTR.

Generally, a disguised weapon is legally a concealed weapon so there’s no difference. Concealed weapons laws don’t usually have a tight definition for ‘weapon’, so an appearance change doesn’t make your device not-a-weapon, and they don’t usually specify a method of concealment beyond ‘not apparent to casual view’ or something similar so your disguised weapon would generally qualify as concealed. You could also end up in worse shape legally, since the concealment would obviously be intentional, not accidental, and there might be a seperate law about disguised weapons.

The one exception I can think of is that you could probably make a disguised knife that meets the ‘pocket knife’ criteria for your area (usually ‘blade under 3 inches in length’) and avoid running afoul of the law that way, but knife that size is easy to conceal without a disguise.

As far as carrying home something that might be a concealed weapon, you need to check exactly what your local concealed weapon statute says. Generally if you carry it in an inaccessible manner (in the trunk, in a case, in the bottom of a backpack) or openly (unsheath the blade) you’re safe but this varies a lot.