Criminal Possession of Weapon Charges

So, what made this a criminal possession (or attempted possession, since he clearly HAD the gun with him at the time?  Anyone want to guess where the gun came from, and if it was originally a LEGAL weapon?

Rapper Ja Rule set to get prison sentence in NYC gun case; he also faces tax rap in NJ 

Article by: JENNIFER PELTZ , Associated Press

NEW YORK - Multiplatinum-selling rapper Ja Rule is set to go to prison, but he's leaving fans with an album on the way.
The rapper-actor — whose gravelly voice, thuggish tough talk and duets with R&B divas made him one of rap's stars in the early 2000s — is set to be sentenced Wednesday to two years in a New York prison.
"My last day out," he Tweeted Tuesday afternoon, adding that he was spending it at the movies with his family.
Ja Rule, 35, pleaded guilty in December to attempted criminal possession of a weapon, resolving a nearly four-year-old case.
Police said they found a loaded .40-caliber semiautomatic gun in a rear door of his $250,000-plus Maybach sports car, which they'd said they'd stopped for speeding as he left a star-laden concert at Manhattan's Beacon Theatre on July 22, 2007. Rap superstar Lil Wayne was arrested separately after headlining the same show. He later pleaded guilty to the same charge, spending about eight months in a city jail last year.
"Laws are laws," Ja Rule said Monday on "Good Day New York," which airs on New York's Fox 5 TV station. "There's nothing I could really do but own up to the situation."
"You know, I try not to regret anything I do in life, because you go through life and you do things, and you man up to them. You own them," he added.
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