Is a convicted drug dealer subject to additional penalties under section 12022 of the Criminal Code for having a firearm at the crime scene?

This conclusion is consistent with the legislative purpose underlying the firearm penalty-enhancement provisions contained in section 12022: to deter those engaged in felonies from creating a risk of death or injury by having a firearm at the scene of the crime. (People v. Reaves, supra, 42 Cal.App.3d 852, 856, 117 Cal.Rptr. 163.) The crime scene in a drug possession case is the place where the [10 Cal.4th 1002] defendant keeps his or her cache of illegal drugs. A firearm kept near the drugs creates an ongoing risk of serious injury or death from use of the weapon to protect the defendant during a drug sale, to guard against theft of the drugs, or to ward off police. Yet defendant would have us ignore the continuing nature of that risk and hold that someone armed with an assault weapon throughout an extended period of drug possession is subject to the additional penalties for armed offenders only if present during the police seizure of the assault weapon and the illegal drugs. To so hold would exempt the most notorious drug traffickers from the reach of section 12022's added penalties for "arming" if they happened to be temporarily absent from the crime scene when the police seized their stash of assault weapons and drugs.