The tenant said the night started with a noise complaint. He had been playing music late, and his downstairs neighbor started banging on the ceiling. Instead of turning the situation into a face-to-face argument, he ignored it at first.
Then the neighbor came to his door.
According to the Reddit post, the tenant grabbed a shotgun before looking through the peephole. He said the gun belonged to his brother, who had left it with him after moving in with a girlfriend who did not want it in the house with her child. The tenant also said his apartment complex had experienced break-ins, so he believed he needed the gun for protection.
The original Reddit post can be found here: https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/13j8nfw/police_came_in_my_apartment_and_took_my_brothers/
The tenant said he did not open the door for the neighbor. He looked through the peephole, stayed quiet, and eventually the neighbor left. After that, he turned off the music, left the shotgun by the door, and went to bed.
About an hour later, there was more banging at the door. He thought it might be the neighbor again, but when he asked who it was, someone said police were there. He opened the door.
That was when the shotgun became the real problem. The tenant said one officer stepped onto the doorstep, said they had received a noise complaint, and then leaned in, saw the gun, shouted about it, and pulled the tenant out. According to the tenant, officers said the shotgun was illegal because the barrel was sawed off. He was arrested and charged with illegal gun possession.
The tenant was frustrated because the gun was not his. But that did not automatically solve his problem. The shotgun was in his apartment, close to the door, and accessible to him. He also admitted in the post that the barrel was sawed off, though he said he did not know that made it illegal.
That turned what might have been a basic noise complaint into a criminal case. The tenant wanted to know whether police had acted legally, since he said he never agreed to a search and never told them they could come inside.
The whole situation had several layers. There was the late music that started the complaint. There was the decision to grab the shotgun when the neighbor knocked. There was the choice to leave it by the door. There was the officer seeing it from the doorway. And then there was the fact that the gun itself may have been illegal regardless of who owned it.
By the time the tenant posted, the argument with the downstairs neighbor was the least of his problems. He was now dealing with a firearm charge in Oregon and trying to understand whether not owning the shotgun was enough to protect him.
Commenters were blunt with him. Several said he needed a criminal defense attorney, not internet reassurance. The main point was that possession does not always mean ownership. If the gun was in his apartment and he had access to it, the fact that his brother bought it or left it there did not automatically keep the tenant out of trouble.
Others focused on the police entry and plain-view issue. Some commenters said if officers were legally standing at the doorway and could see the gun, that might allow them to act, especially if the firearm appeared illegal or was within reach during an encounter. Others said the exact details mattered enough that only a lawyer could evaluate whether the officer leaned too far in or conducted an improper search.
A few commenters pointed out that a short-barreled shotgun can create serious legal problems. One asked how short the barrel was, noting that under federal law, shotguns below certain barrel or overall length limits can fall under strict regulation unless properly registered.
Several people also criticized the tenant’s choices leading up to the arrest. Playing music late, ignoring the neighbor, grabbing a shotgun during a noise dispute, and leaving it by the door all made the situation worse. Even commenters who were interested in the search question did not treat the tenant’s conduct as harmless.
The post ended with the tenant focused on whether police had overstepped. Commenters kept bringing him back to the bigger issue: there was an allegedly illegal shotgun in his apartment, he had access to it, and he needed a lawyer before trying to explain his way out of it.
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