Yes — if you hold a valid Michigan CPL, you can carry someone else’s pistol concealed, provided the owner is legally allowed to possess that pistol. The authority comes from MCL 28.432(1)(i), which exempts a person from the usual pistol purchase-license requirement when they are carrying or transporting a pistol belonging to another individual, as long as the owner’s possession is authorized by law and the carrier has a concealed pistol license or a licensure exemption.1Michigan Legislature. MCL – Section 28.432 The exemption is narrow in an important way: it makes the borrowing lawful, but it does not loosen any of the other rules that govern where you can carry, what you can carry, and who can carry at all.
The Two Conditions, in Plain Terms
Both conditions in MCL 28.432 have to be satisfied. Neither is optional.
The first is about the pistol and its owner. The owner’s possession must be authorized by law. A stolen pistol doesn’t qualify. Neither does one held by a person who is prohibited from having firearms. If the gun’s provenance is bad, your clean record and valid CPL don’t save you — the exemption simply doesn’t apply.1Michigan Legislature. MCL – Section 28.432
The second is about you. You need a valid Michigan CPL, or you need to fall within a licensure exemption (certain law enforcement officers, for example). An expired, suspended, or revoked CPL doesn’t count. If either condition fails, you are carrying a pistol without the legal cover the statute provides.
What Your CPL Still Doesn’t Let You Do
Pistol-Free Zones Apply the Same Way
The locations where CPL holders cannot carry concealed are the same whether the pistol is yours or borrowed. Under MCL 28.425o, the list includes schools and school property (with a limited exception for a parent in a vehicle during drop-off or pick-up), child care and day care centers, sports arenas and stadiums, bars where alcohol sales are the primary source of income, places of worship unless the presiding officials permit concealed carry, entertainment venues seating 2,500 or more, hospitals, and dormitories and classrooms at colleges and universities.2Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws 28.425o – Premises on Which Carrying Concealed Pistol Prohibited The places-of-worship rule catches people out: it’s a default prohibition unless the leadership has affirmatively allowed carry.
Some Weapons Are Off-Limits to Everyone
MCL 750.224 makes it a felony to possess machine guns, silencers and suppressors, bombs or bombshells, and certain melee weapons such as blackjacks, slungshots, and metallic knuckles. Up to five years in prison, a fine up to $2,500, or both.3Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws 750.224 – Weapons; Manufacture, Sale, or Possession If a friend hands you a pistol that has been illegally modified to fire automatically, your CPL does nothing for you. Possession is the crime.
Federal Prohibited-Person Rules Override Everything
18 U.S.C. § 922(g) bars certain people from possessing any firearm or ammunition, anywhere, regardless of state licensing. The categories include anyone convicted of a crime punishable by more than one year of imprisonment, fugitives from justice, unlawful users of controlled substances and people addicted to them, people adjudicated as mentally defective or committed to a mental institution, certain non-citizens, people dishonorably discharged from the armed forces, people who have renounced U.S. citizenship, people subject to certain domestic restraining orders, and people convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 922 – Unlawful Acts If you fall into any of these, borrowing a pistol is a federal offense the moment it comes into your hands. The same logic runs the other way for lenders: handing your pistol to a federally prohibited person makes them a federal offender on contact.
Traffic Stops and the Disclosure Issue
Michigan CPL holders have to tell a police officer they are carrying a concealed pistol immediately during any stop, not when asked. First-offense penalties are a $500 fine and a six-month CPL suspension; a second offense brings a $1,000 fine and revocation.5Marquette County. Proper Conduct During Encounters with Police
With a borrowed gun, there’s an extra step. When the officer runs the serial number, the pistol will come back registered to someone else. That alone is not illegal — it is, after all, exactly what MCL 28.432 contemplates — but it tends to prompt follow-up questions. A short, calm explanation covers it: you’re borrowing the pistol, the owner legally possesses it, and you hold a valid CPL. Some people keep written permission from the owner in the glove box. Michigan law doesn’t require it.
Self-Defense With a Borrowed Pistol
Michigan’s Self-Defense Act, MCL 780.972, does not ask who owns the firearm. The two conditions for the lawful use of deadly force are that you are not committing a crime at the time and that you have an honest and reasonable belief that you face imminent death or serious bodily harm. Ownership of the weapon is not part of the test.
So if you are lawfully carrying under MCL 28.432 and use the borrowed pistol in legitimate self-defense, the borrowing itself should not undercut your defense. The real risk runs the other direction. If your CPL lapsed, or the owner wasn’t legally allowed to possess the pistol, you could be facing firearms charges on top of everything else — even in a shooting that would otherwise be clearly justified. Worth thinking through before borrowing a pistol for personal protection rather than a range trip.
If You’re the One Lending
Michigan’s 2023 safe storage law puts criminal liability on gun owners who leave firearms unsecured where a minor can access them, when the minor then possesses or displays the firearm publicly, or points it at another person in a reckless or threatening manner. The defense is proper storage: a locked container, or a locking device that renders the firearm inoperable.
Lending doesn’t transfer that responsibility. If you lend your pistol to a friend with a CPL who then leaves it on a nightstand within reach of a teenager, consequences can run back to you as the owner. The borrower’s CPL is not a storage measure. Before handing a pistol over, have the storage conversation: where it will be kept, how it will be secured when it isn’t on the person, and who else is in the household.