American Samoa § 46.4203 - Unlawful use of weapons.

§ 46.4203. Unlawful use of weapons.

(a) A person commits the crime of unlawful use of weapons if he knowingly: (1) carries concealed on or about his person a knife, a firearm, a blackjack or any other weapon readily capable of lethal use; (2) sets a spring gun; (3) discharges or shoots a firearm into an inhabitable structure, boat, aircraft, vehicle, or any building or structure used for the assembling of people; (4) aims a firearm or projectile weapon at another person in an angry or threatening manner, or possesses a knife, firearm, blackjack, or any other weapon readily capable of lethal use with purpose to unlawfully use the weapon against another person; (5) possesses or discharges a firearm or projectile weapon while intoxicated; (6) discharges a firearm within 100 yards of any occupied school house, courthouse, or church building; (7) discharges or shoots a firearm at a mark, at any object, or at random, on, along or across a public highway or discharges or shoots a firearm into any out-building; or (8) carries a knife, firearm, blackjack, or any other weapon readily capable of lethal use into any church or place where people have assembled for worship, or into any school, or into any election district on any election day, or into any building owned or occupied by any agency of the federal government, territorial government, or political subdivision of them, or into any public assemblage of persons met for any lawful purpose. (b) Exemptions. (1) Paragraphs (a) (1), (3), (4), (6), (7) and (8) do not apply to or affect any of the following: (A) peace officers, or any person summoned by these officers to assist in making arrests or preserving the peace while actually engaged in assisting the officer; (B) wardens, superintendents and keepers of prisons, jails and other institutions for the detention of persons accused or convicted of crime; (C) members of the armed forces while performing their official duty. (2) Paragraph (a) (1) does not apply when the actor is transporting the weapons in a nonfunctioning state or when not readily accessible. (c) The defendant has the burden of injecting the issue of an exemption under subsection (b). (d) Unlawful use of weapons is a class D felony unless committed under paragraph (a) (5), (6), (7) or (8), then it is a class B misdemeanor. Research Guide: MPCC 16.030, 23 ASC 1—15, 15 ASC 11-22.