Actually you're wrong. Intent to do harm means nothing.
The charge is simple:
1. Did you carry a weapon of some sort?
- a firearm of any sort (including an antique) is a weapon, full stop, under our current laws that define what a weapon is. You would have no defense here.
2. Did you conceal it with the intent to conceal it?
- this may be harder depending on the circumstances. Riding s motorbike with a backpack or shoulder bag and a locked cased handgun inside, clearly your intent was to safely carry it, the concealment was just incidental to the method by which you carried it.
Take a guitar case, fill it with pelican foam, cut it out to fit your favourite rifle, and carry it in that? You clearly selected a guitar case, and the intent to conceal would be fairly easy to prove.... You used a case that looks nothing like a case normally used to carry a guitar, ergo you concealed it.
Any talk of "keeping the bed wetters from seeing it" is talk of concealment.
See R. Vs. Falawka for more details. The supreme court held that there need not be intent to use the item as a weapon if it was a gun, because a gun is inherently defined as a weapon all the time.
Do not conceal a firearm intentionally and carry it, unless you like risking jail time over nothing.
