What is the legal meaning of "delivery"?

[Stealth_Potato]

As some of you may or may not know, Initiative 594 was approved by Washington State voters this election. Nominally, the measure requires background checks on all sales or transfers of firearms. However, a lot of opposition was fueled by the idea that the proposed law would also criminalize a lot of common, fairly innocuous exchanges: for example, letting a buddy shoot one of your guns on private land.

The text of the initiative includes a definition of “transfer”:

(25) “Transfer” means the intended delivery of a firearm to another person without consideration of payment or pomise of payment including, but not limited to, gifts and loans.

It then goes on to provide a small list of exempted transfers which would not require background checks, including, for example,

(f) The temporary transfer of a firearm… (ii) if the temporary transfer occurs, and the firearm is kept at all times, at an established shooting range authorized by the governing body of the jurisdiction in which such range is located

The full text of the measure can be found here: http://sos.wa.gov/_assets/elections/initiatives/FinalText_483.pdf
Now, I got into a bit of an argument with someone about the real implications of this law. I maintained that the narrow list of exemptions means that the law criminalizes, e.g., handing a gun to a friend while out shooting (except at an “established shooting range”). The other antagonist in the debate argued that “delivery” is a term with an established legal meaning, which exclusively refers to a handing over of some property in the fulfillment of a transaction (and even more specifically, that it refers to an exchange of actual ownership, not merely constructive possession), and therefore excludes such a transient exchange as allowing someone to use your firearm in your presence.

My counter-argument was that such a narrow reading of the term “delivery” would make nearly all the exemptions moot – which should pretty clearly indicate that the intended meaning of “transfer” was much broader. A bit of back-and-forth only made it clear that neither of us were lawyers, and we concluded at a bit of an impasse.

So, I’m curious: is there a good legal answer to this? The law defines “transfer” in terms of an “intended delivery” – does that have a concrete legal meaning, and how might a judge interpret this law in practice?

[UDS]

IANA Washington State or US L, and I have no cite, but here are my thoughts:

Leave aside specialist senses of “delivery” that are clearly not relevant here, e.g. the delivery of a deed, delivery in conveyancing practice, etc…

Delivery normally involves giving somebody possession and control of goods for the purpose of completing a transaction. It doesn’t have to involve a change of ownership; the transaction could be a lease of the goods and, clearly, in this context something as simple as a short loan is intended to be covered. I do think, though, that using the term “delivery” gives the provision the flavour of involving something that can be characterised as a transaction. Simply asking you to hold my rifle while I put on my coat, for instance, is probably not a delivery.

So, if you’re visiting my house and I am showing you my guns, and I pass you one to handle and admire, I wouldn’t say that’s a delivery. Even though you could turn round and shoot me (if the gun were loaded) or shoot someone or something else, there’s no intention to put you in control of the gun. I don’t expect you to use the gun, just handle it and look at it, so there’s no “intended delivery” of the gun.

On the other hand, if I call to your house and give you the gun on Friday morning so that you can (by agreement) take it on your hunting trip this weekend, use it and then return it to me on Monday, that is delivery, because I intend you to have possession and control of the gun, even if temporarily.

If we’re out shooting together and I pass you the gun so that you can use it to take a shot at a target - let’s say that for whatever reason my gun is a better tool for this particular shot than yours is, and you ask to borrow ming - again I’d say (with some hesitation) that’s not a “delivery”. You have been given the gun to sight on a particular target, shoot, and then hand the gun back, all with my agreement. I don’t intend that you should have any substantial control over the gun in the sense of taking independent decisions about what to do with it. Not a delivery, in my view. But I think you could argue it the other way.

[Irishman]

@Stealth_Potato

My counter-argument was that such a narrow reading of the term “delivery” would make nearly all the exemptions moot – which should pretty clearly indicate that the intended meaning of “transfer” was much broader. A bit of back-and-forth only made it clear that neither of us were lawyers, and we concluded at a bit of an impasse.

So, I’m curious: is there a good legal answer to this? The law defines “transfer” in terms of an “intended delivery” – does that have a concrete legal meaning, and how might a judge interpret this law in practice?

IANA lawyer, nor read up on legal matters. I did read through the link you provided.

I would think the inclusion of definition of terms in this document would preceed any other reading of terms. In this case, they defined “transfer” as

(25) “Transfer” means the intended delivery of a firearm to another person without consideration of payment or promise of payment including, but not limited to, gifts and loans

Delivery is not specifically defined.

The exemption list in section (4) seems to imply any form of giving the weapon to another person for any type of use is considered delivery. The exemptions list training as part of some established performance group, or for hunting, as well as supervised use by minors, or use at target ranges.

So, inspecting an unloaded gun in your house or whatever probably wouldn’t be considered “transfer” or “delivery”, but handing a loaded weapon to someone probably would. In my uneducated opinion.