where would I find the laws about my pistol on my boat ? It would be Puget Sound not open ocean.

There really are none. Just keep it as you normally would, I've never had problems when I had a boat, and I've been inpsected by Coasties and local cops both when carrying.

Thank you....no wonder I could find nothing LOL

The bigger issue seems to be how many firearms are reported as lost 'somewhere in Puget Sound' . . . .

Yes... Only an issue if you take them into international waters... Well not necessarily taking them out so much as bringing them back in. Cg doesn't give too much of a rats ass unless your up to other illegal activity. And remeber, cg is a maritime law enforcement agency so yea if you get asked if you have firearms act as if it was any other cop.

Don't worry about puddle jumpers finding your guns... they couldn't find water if they fell out of a boat.

Firearms on a boat? That's how I lost all of mine.

What do you mean?

It "MIGHT" be a running internet joke....but I'm not sure because I lost all my firearms too in a tragic boating accident.

Why would the CG give a "rats ass" if you are returning from International Waters as long as you haven't landed in any foreign countries? You left US waters, traveled around international waters, and are returning without having "picked up" anything along the way except perhaps some sea-sickness, diarrhea, or sunburn.

It's the "other country" that usually gets a "knotted jock" when you show up with firearms and don't have the proper "papers".

If you're planning on visiting any Canadian port, just stick with a good stainless steel Mossberg shotgun. More than adequate to defend your boat at sea, dispatch a huge halibut if you do catch one, and the Canadians don't get a bad case of "loose stool" over shotguns like they do over pistols.

I can't remember what law it was, we covered it in one of the classes. I know we added a charge to a guy who was going out and muleing illegals from Cuba, had a pistol and shotgun onboard his "fishing" boat.

I know we let it slide on guys off the Oregon coast on atleast a couple boarding we did. They didn't have any illegals in their boat though.... Just sayin.

I can't ever remember it being an issue on any boarding.

Did have a guy once who was like "dude I have a gun.... Dude I have a gun.... Dude I have a gun... Dude I have a gun..."

We just told him to just stop taking then proceeded to cite him for a bunch of stuff, gun not included.

State or international?

Like I said I know the Florida guy got popped on something firearm with his charges. I'm pretty sure I had something to do with bringing a firearm into the country in the process off committing a felony(I talked to one of the guys I was stationed with this morning while on Facebook, that's what he came up with), we could be totally off on the charge but we both remember him getting a firearms charge.

And multiple boardings on the Columbia river where people had guns, most people told us as soon as we stepped on the boat, a few after we asked. Never had any issues with firearms on inland waters, just booze and safety issues(lack of life vests is the majority of that one)

Cost guard so federal. Did a lot of boardings in Alaska and off the coast. But most of my MLE was done central and south America. With those guys we definitely cared about firearms...

Was never really an issue stateside... Hell one F/V in Alaska had a cool shotgun... He took it down and showed it to us... We played show and tell with what we had and he had and went on our way.

Alaska is a whole nother animal