"The appellate court reinstated the charge against Fleming, finding that a firearm is "any gun from which a shot or a projectile is discharged by means of explosive, gas or compressed air."
Tha Appelate court has no grounds in the law to do this. I'm sure the MN legislaturre doesn't classify bb guns as a firearm and neither do the feds. stinkin' liberals!
"The Law", both state and local, contains some very strange definitions. For example: In the portion of the law known as the National Firearms Act, "firearm" doesn't mean all guns which use an exothermic chemical reaction to propel a projectile", which is the common usage definition, but rather only machine guns, short barreled shotguns and rifles, along with a few items not considered firearms at all, such as sound suppressors, "explosive devices" and others. Some of that may be that the original bill included handguns as well, but they were removed from the legislation. In other parts of the same US Code, firearm takes on something closer to the common usage definition.