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dicion wrote:

mr.72 wrote:

Purplehood wrote:It was adequately concealed if the officers searched the vehicle and found nothing, only to be made aware of it by the OP himself. Come daylight, he might have moved it elsewhere.

I guess I interpreted "clearing" in this context to not be referring to a search of the vehicle. It was a 15-passenger van, and they (reportedly) thought he may have been involved in a drive-by shooting. The "clearing" sounds like it was in order to ensure there were not other people in the large vehicle. The "search" after the gun was pointed out resulted in them easily finding the gun in a rather conspicuous location.

Anyway, point is that, while it may have been adequately concealed for most purposes, this all goes out the window once you get stopped and the cops start looking into the vehicle to find things. It's going to be a tough argument to make, that the gun was concealed, when all that it took to reveal it was a flashlight.

The key here is the wording in the MPA:

(a-1) A person commits an offense if the person
intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly carries on or about his or
her person a handgun in a motor vehicle that is owned by the person
or under the person's control at any time in which:
(1) the handgun is in plain view; or

It doesn't say 'concealed', it says 'in plain view'

If the police looked through the vehicle, and did not see the handgun, then it was not 'in plain view'.
Therefore, he did not violate the statute.

Someone more knowledgable than myself may correct me, but I believe that 'plain view' has a legal definition that an officer must be able to see this item WITHOUT actually searching, or even entering, the vehicle. So even if it was found in a search, it could still be considered not in 'plain view'. Eg, if you can't see it from standing outside a window and looking in, then it is not in 'plain view'.