Thanks, Kly.
Here (as elsewhere, probably), when a perp is arrested, the authorities tack everything onto the charges, no doubt to encourage a plea-bargain. Typically, someone arrested with a little more than personal-use quantities of drugs is charged with possession of narcotics; possession with intent to sell; possession of drug paraphernalia and, if armed, possession of a lethal weapon while committing a drug offense. Of course, if he pleads guilty to one charge, the others will be dropped.

Here's a strange one:

A guy went with his girlfriend to her apartment near here so she could retrieve something. He got into an argument with another tenant, who was the girl's previous boyfriend. Neither male had met the other before. The former boyfriend went to his apartment, retrieved his gun, and killed the new boyfriend. He's charged with first degree murder. There seemed to be nothing premeditated about it. I'm assuming the first-degree charge stemmed from the guy going into his apartment to get the gun--if he'd been armed during the argument, it would have been second-degree murder. I think they reached for "first degree" to incent a plea bargain.