Court Opinion

ID: 9652359
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 17:22:48.524799+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:50.673915
License: Public Domain

SPAETH, Judge,
dissenting:
I join Judge HOFFMAN’s dissenting opinion, but wish to add another reason why intent is a necessary element of the offense.
On its face § 908(a) seems to create a “no-fault” or “no-intent” offense. It implies that certain weapons—such as altered firearms (sawed-off shotguns, guns with silencers), switchblade knives, and grenades—are so inherently dangerous and without lawful use that no one will be allowed to possess them. This contrasts with § 907(b), which covers concealed “ordinary” weapons, but which requires, as an element of the offense, intent to use the weapon unlawfully.
Had the legislature meant to create a “no-intent” offense, however, it would not have created the exception provided *66in paragraph (b) of § 908: possession “as a curio or [for use] in a dramatic performance.” In creating a “no-intent” offense, the legislature would have had in mind the dangerous nature of these special weapons, and their lack of justification, and feared that if they existed and circulated at all, they might fall into the wrong hands, or be activated by accident, and that with their great potential for harm, possession of them at all should be made culpable.
The provision of the curio and dramatic performance exception runs counter to such reasoning. A burglar could steal a sword cane “possessed . . . solely as a curio” and use it unlawfully; a grenade used in a dramatic performance could go off and harm many persons. It would seem that these sorts of possessions would also have been made subject to “no-intent” culpability, if indeed that was what the legislature had in mind. By providing the curio and dramatic performance exception, the legislature was noting that there are lawful uses for the worst of weapons— for example, a performance of the musical “West Side Story” using switchblade knives. It makes sense, then, to require proof of intent to use these weapons unlawfully before a person can be convicted of possessing them—just as is required under § 907 for “ordinary” weapons, which also have lawful uses.