TexasCHLforum.com

The only situation I have heard of where the students license's were in jeopardy was where the instructor held classes shorter than the 10 hours.

dubya wrote:1) Any business can ban all handguns (guns) with ANY sign. A sign with a gun with a circle and line around it would suffice according to this instructor. Is this right?

That's true in some other states. Are you sure he took a Texas CHL class?

Mike1951 wrote:The only situation I have heard of where the students license's were in jeopardy was where the instructor held classes shorter than the 10 hours.

BTW, this is not referencing any instructor who taught 9 or 9 1/2 hours classes and covered all the required info. This is an instructor who was basically selling the certificate, and not requiring any class.

As far as blatant misinformation from an instructor goes, I doubt any student has ever been revoked for that. But there is no excuse for instructors not knowing their stuff. There are vast resources available to them, not the least of which is the 40 hour initial course they took from DPS, and the 8 hour renewal every 2 years.

My position and the position I convey to my students is this:

If a business or other private property is posted with a 30.06 at any one of their entrances, you are in jeopardy of being arrested if 'made', regardless of whether or not you saw the sign. Because the law says you must be 'notified' and the entrance you chose was NOT posted, this may be a defense to prosecution, but you probably WON'T beat the night in jail, you WILL need a lawyer, your CHL WILL be suspended while it's all sorted out, it WILL cost you dollars and you WILL have an arrest on your record.

With this in mind, why would you knowingly enter a 30.06 posted property though an unposted entrance while carrying?

I just checked the DPS website and they have the .pdf of the 2007-8 legislative changes back up for download. I haven't gone through it yet but a quick scan showed a lot of crossing out and word changes....

heliguy972 wrote:I just checked the DPS website and they have the .pdf of the 2007-8 legislative changes back up for download. I haven't gone through it yet but a quick scan showed a lot of crossing out and word changes....

Here is the 2007-2008 Concealed Handgun License and Related Weapons Statutes

The PDF is a scanned image and is, therefore, not searchable. You can find 30.06 on page 40.

dubya wrote:I think the "spirit" of it must be considered; not every entrace can be marked in a big facility.

.

That is silly, of course every entrance can be marked. If there are 2 dozen entrances then they simply need 2 dozen signs. Lazy and cheap is the only reason they cant. Every public entrance usually has hours, ghostbusters, etc. Are you saying management and/or staff cant seem to locate all of them? I dont believe "spirit" would be a defense, otherwise rolling stops, speeding, etc could get thrown out. After all the spirit of all laws is safety and fairness. DA's could use that as well and ignore black letter law in "the spirit" of things.

DoubleActionCHL wrote:

heliguy972 wrote:I just checked the DPS website and they have the .pdf of the 2007-8 legislative changes back up for download. I haven't gone through it yet but a quick scan showed a lot of crossing out and word changes....

Here is the 2007-2008 Concealed Handgun License and Related Weapons Statutes

The PDF is a scanned image and is, therefore, not searchable. You can find 30.06 on page 40.

I converted the handbook to OpenOffice.org and to Microsoft .doc format.
The links can be found here. It is not only searchable but it is editable so you can highlight and make your own notes

dubya wrote:I think the "spirit" of it must be considered; not every entrace can be marked in a big facility.

Sorry, it doesn't work that way.
Who'se to say what the SPIRIT of the law is? That leads to broad interpretations, like the interstate commerce clause, the GCA '68, the machine gun "ban", the AWB, warrantless wiretaps, no fly lists, etc.

By spirit I am suggesting the obvious intent of the law be followed and everyone not try to sidestep the obvious intent with gray areas.

rm9792 wrote:That is silly, of course every entrance can be marked. If there are 2 dozen entrances then they simply need 2 dozen signs.

Actually, it is almost impossible to mark every entrance to a mall, especially a large one. Many, if not all, malls are built with the anchor stores paying for part of the construction and owning the store for some period of time. Thus, the mall cannot post a 30.06 sign on the entrance to the store since it is not in control or the owner of the property. And they cannot post the entrance from the store to the mall since the sign would need to be on someone else's property (inside the store) to actually stop entry. If the sign is posted as a sign in the mall corridor by the door from the store, you could carry as far as the sign.

And then there are all the entrances that are not open to the public. While it is true that they could post these entrances if they wanted, there is a cost factor.

But the important part is that the law does not require every entrance to be posted. It requires only the sign be posted where a reasonable person would see it. So, there is the defense that you entered the mall through the anchor store which was not posted and had never seen the signs, but that would be just a defense in court. You would probably still get arrested for the charge. And that defense would only work one possible time. After that, you have received the notice personally from the stop where the defense worked.

srothstein wrote:

rm9792 wrote:That is silly, of course every entrance can be marked. If there are 2 dozen entrances then they simply need 2 dozen signs.

Actually, it is almost impossible to mark every entrance to a mall, especially a large one. Many, if not all, malls are built with the anchor stores paying for part of the construction and owning the store for some period of time. Thus, the mall cannot post a 30.06 sign on the entrance to the store since it is not in control or the owner of the property. And they cannot post the entrance from the store to the mall since the sign would need to be on someone else's property (inside the store) to actually stop entry. If the sign is posted as a sign in the mall corridor by the door from the store, you could carry as far as the sign.

And then there are all the entrances that are not open to the public. While it is true that they could post these entrances if they wanted, there is a cost factor.

But the important part is that the law does not require every entrance to be posted. It requires only the sign be posted where a reasonable person would see it. So, there is the defense that you entered the mall through the anchor store which was not posted and had never seen the signs, but that would be just a defense in court. You would probably still get arrested for the charge. And that defense would only work one possible time. After that, you have received the notice personally from the stop where the defense worked.

I disagree with you on a couple of points, Steve, the first being that it is impossible to post every entrance - impractical maybe, but not impossible, and in the malls that I know of the ownership of the real property stays with the ownership of the mall, the anchor stores have leases and the property owners, such as the Simon Corp. could easily erect any signage they want, if only on a kiosk outside each entrance.

The cost factor is a flimsy excuse - if they want to comply with the law and give effective notice, then the cost is unimportant.

And as far as the law requiring every entrance to be posted or not - my, admittedly personal and only good as far as the end of my fingertips on the keyboard, opinion is that every access to a property has to be posted to constitute effective notice. If there is some manner or method of entering a property that is not posted, and I use that entrance to the exclusion of any other, then I have not been given effective notice.

A case in point is our local bugbear - Grapevine Mills Mall - which was only posted at the "main" entrance the last time I was there (it has been years) - I put main in quotes because that is identified as "entrance 2" in the mall maps. If you take the train down from Ft Worth and take a cab to the mall, you will be dropped off at entrance 3 where the taxi stand is, or used to be, and there is, or was, no 30.06 sign at that entrance - so it is possible to innocently come to the DFW area for touristy reasons and go into that mall without ever knowing it is posted - and that is not effective notice. The same thing applies to; arriving on a tour bus, entrance 1 or 6; or walking over from Bass Pro, entrance 1; or going into the mall after a matinee movie, entrance 5; none of which used to be posted.

Of course that "excuse" won't beat the ride, but I would expect my attorney to have a field day with the case.

Now the Simon Corp. may have corrected these deficiencies, and I guess those of you who object to it could blame me, because I did this geek based analysis of their posting after receiving their reply years ago, and sent them a copy - hoping to incur a maximum of that cost factor mentioned above.

I find it more probable that your buddy is remembering incorrectly.

They very well can post every entrance. I have yet to notice any point of ingress or egress to a mall that is totally blank. Every door, fire exit, loading dock door, etc has some sort of sign on it. It doesn't matter if there are a thousand doors into the mall, someone had to put them there; they didn't appear from nowhere. If someone put in a door, they can just jolly well put a sign on it at the same time.

And the cost factor? Waaahhhh! Cry me a river.

As far as the law not specifically requiring every entrance to be posted: that's something we should work to have changed.

My idea to make everything totally clear and avoid confusion is as follows:

1) Every door must be posted on the door. Not beside it, on the door itself. That means fire exits, loading dock doors, etc, too. If there are double doors, both must be posted.

2) The top edge of the sign must be between four and six feet from the bottom edge of the door. No more signs hidden at the bottom where they're easy to miss.

3) To eliminate variations in the language and lettering that might cause confusion (is this a proper sign or not?), only official signs are permitted. Signs are available from the DPS for a fee of $140 per sign. Businesses posting imprpoper signs are subject to a fine.

4) Businesses posting 30.06 must provide armed security and must provide individual lockers for patrons to secure their weapons.

I kinda liked the analogy of the speed limit signs. A town having a speed limit sign on the western city limits, but not on the northern, southern or eastern city limits would have the effect of being effective to only the citizens that are entering the town from the west. The people who entered the town from the north, south or east would have no clue what the speed limit was to be.

The same hold true for the 30.06.

I used to work at a place that had--oh lets see, 4 buildings, one building has 3 doors. one had only 2, the third had 13 ways to enter, and the main building had at least 30 ways to enter. Customers could enter the building by driving in the shop, one of the side doors, or on to the showroom proper. That's 48 doorways/entrance ways for an average car dealership to post. Many patrons would come in one door, walk around for several hours and leave a different way. If only one or two "main" doors were posted, then it might have had the desired effect; however, if someone came in via the service entrance, or even through the shop--as many people do, they would have never seen the sign... would they be under the 30.06? Interesting concept.

While I was prohibited from carrying by the handbook, no customer was prohibited--no sign was ever posted because the boss man simply did not want to spend the money. Simply put: "Car dealers are cheap!"

At least this one was.

Now, having said all that... If you know that a sign is there, then you have been given effective notice already. This board, along with 30.06.com, gives you that notice beforehand.

Russ