Courthouses, is the whole building off limits or not?
Posted: Sun Nov 29, 2009 11:36 pm
I have done a search and it seems this question is never answered. The reason I am bringing this up is that an article appeared in the opinion page of the Graham Leader which deals with Courthouse CHL Carry. I have a friend who lives in Graham and they have always been told that it was legal to carry in the courthouse provided you did not go into the actual courtrooms or court offices. This particular building has the Tax Office and other entities in the same building.
It appears that the Judge has decided to post the building with a no guns sign angering a few CHLer's. The following letter was written in regards to the no guns sign posting by someone in Graham. My question is this, if Courthouses are off limits and apply to the whole building, why would the judge feel the need to post the building with a no guns sign? I am not the author of the letter but I do understand it is hard to read. Below is the letter as written with a link to the original. (Edited to remove 30.06 sign)
Guest viewpoint -- Young County officials don't trust the law
It has taken me some time to decide how I felt about this matter and whether I needed to say anything about it at all. But in the final analysis, I think too many have been too quiet, too long, about a lot of things.
I read your explanation of how you thought the vote of the Young County commissioners to ban persons with licenses to carry concealed handguns from the courthouse was justifiable. I must disagree with what these elected officials have done in Young County, an area of our state I had believed, until now, to have maintained some common sense amidst our current political landscape. Since the inception of the conceal carry law, CCL, in January of 1996, the fine people of Texas have proven the fearmongers and politically correct anti-gun liberals wrong about what this law would do to our state. There has been no bloodbaths in the streets, no courthouses taken by vigilantes and no schools held hostage by legally permitted gun owners. Indeed, no one thinks much of the fact that the guy or gal next to you might have a firearm on or near their person. It hasn’t been a problem for anyone except the person who may have entertained the thought of doing harm to others, but has been deterred by the fact that someone might have the means and ability to retaliate and/or stop them with force. Besides, I believe that a free citizen has the right to defend himself and family against the evil of this world.
Your recognition of the most important aspect of this episode in the reduction of civil rights seems to have been swept away by the time you reach the end of your essay. This will not keep someone from using a gun to do harm in our courthouse. This will not keep an evil or psychotic person from doing what it is they are bent upon doing. And, this fact is where the problem lies, because if the commissioners and the judge believe that removing the legal right provided to citizens by the legislature of the State of Texas to allow our citizens to defend themselves with the same force that may confront them, then we are on a slippery slope. If we ban concealed carry permit holders with their guns in the courthouse, then why not go past the front door to the lawn of the courthouse, or to the perimeter of the square? If it will truly stop harm from befalling anyone, anywhere, why not take it to 1000 feet from the courthouse, or to the city limit signs? Maybe we should go to the county line, or into our homes and stop these gun-toting citizens from even owning a gun. We may even decide that the law is faulty and should be done away with altogether. But that thinking is wrong because it is not the legal gun owner we need to fear. What we should fear is poorly informed and scared bureaucrats who don’t trust the population that they have been charged to protect and defend. And there, I think, is the biggest insult: our commissioner’s court and district judge don’t trust the law or the people who have exercised their rights under that law.
The district judge is an appointment, owing nothing to any voter except to those that voted for the official that is charged with the appointment. This is by design so that we get the best judges on the bench. But it does leave that judge more liable for the political slant of his decisions. Judge Crawford is a fine judge and has shown himself to be capable on the bench. I would hope that his asking for this ban on legally licensed gun owners from our county judge, and in turn from our county commissioners, is not based on a feeling about gun control that is part of his political party affiliation. I feel that he is capable of resisting such pressures. I am greatly dismayed, however, when our county judge says that “for no other reason than the district judge asked” to be the basis of a decision that reverses a legislated right enacted by the people’s elected representatives in the state capitol. Also, I am taken aback when the very man who invited my wife and I to come and earn our conceal carry permits adds his vote to extend the restriction on permit holders from the courtroom, where it has always been banned, to the front doors of the courthouse. My representative to the commissioner’s court went along willingly, and I have no doubt, at the time, felt he was somehow doing someone some good. Political spin aside, the commissioners did not remove legal guns from the courtroom because the CCL has always had them restricted there. This decision simply restricted legal citizens from exercising their rights to carry a concealed gun in the remainder of the courthouse. Courtroom, courthouse — big difference. It ignores the fact that harm can certainly befall anyone outside the courthouse with more certainty than inside the courthouse. Young County has had more shooting incidents outside the courthouse than inside it and that is a fact. There must be another reason for doing what they did. It irks me to think what that reason might have been, because what I thought to be a conservative county court made a horrible liberal decision. The state of Texas had allowed the courthouse ban of CCLs in the courthouse 13 years ago when the law was passed. Many urban, more populated, counties did that very thing. These places tend to be more liberal about some of their thinking, and it was part of a compromise for passage of the law. But why here, in Young County, and why now, 13 years later? It seems to go against the character of the citizens in our county. I mean, we are Texans for gosh sake, in the very best sense of the term. It is hard for me to understand that we did this on the request of one man who was fearful that a legally armed citizen might do harm in the courthouse, even though there is no evidence that a problem exists there that is any greater than outside the courthouse. What happened to make him distrust his fellow citizens who are law abiding, letter of the law, gun-carrying regular folk? Maybe it comes with seeing some of the worst in society from the bench. This was on the backside of the Fort Hood massacre, so maybe the timing was right. Luckily, there were some righteous guns in that room that day at Ft. Hood or that crazy, evil man could have killed many more. Timothy McVeigh didn’t use a gun when he decided to do harm to a courthouse. We can’t stop these people with laws. But, we can hurt this country with misguided restrictions on the rest of us. Maybe our court and elected officials should have asked for some input of the people that elected them before traveling this road. It is a matter that will surely weigh upon the voters come election day. That’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.
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It appears that the Judge has decided to post the building with a no guns sign angering a few CHLer's. The following letter was written in regards to the no guns sign posting by someone in Graham. My question is this, if Courthouses are off limits and apply to the whole building, why would the judge feel the need to post the building with a no guns sign? I am not the author of the letter but I do understand it is hard to read. Below is the letter as written with a link to the original. (Edited to remove 30.06 sign)
Guest viewpoint -- Young County officials don't trust the law
It has taken me some time to decide how I felt about this matter and whether I needed to say anything about it at all. But in the final analysis, I think too many have been too quiet, too long, about a lot of things.
I read your explanation of how you thought the vote of the Young County commissioners to ban persons with licenses to carry concealed handguns from the courthouse was justifiable. I must disagree with what these elected officials have done in Young County, an area of our state I had believed, until now, to have maintained some common sense amidst our current political landscape. Since the inception of the conceal carry law, CCL, in January of 1996, the fine people of Texas have proven the fearmongers and politically correct anti-gun liberals wrong about what this law would do to our state. There has been no bloodbaths in the streets, no courthouses taken by vigilantes and no schools held hostage by legally permitted gun owners. Indeed, no one thinks much of the fact that the guy or gal next to you might have a firearm on or near their person. It hasn’t been a problem for anyone except the person who may have entertained the thought of doing harm to others, but has been deterred by the fact that someone might have the means and ability to retaliate and/or stop them with force. Besides, I believe that a free citizen has the right to defend himself and family against the evil of this world.
Your recognition of the most important aspect of this episode in the reduction of civil rights seems to have been swept away by the time you reach the end of your essay. This will not keep someone from using a gun to do harm in our courthouse. This will not keep an evil or psychotic person from doing what it is they are bent upon doing. And, this fact is where the problem lies, because if the commissioners and the judge believe that removing the legal right provided to citizens by the legislature of the State of Texas to allow our citizens to defend themselves with the same force that may confront them, then we are on a slippery slope. If we ban concealed carry permit holders with their guns in the courthouse, then why not go past the front door to the lawn of the courthouse, or to the perimeter of the square? If it will truly stop harm from befalling anyone, anywhere, why not take it to 1000 feet from the courthouse, or to the city limit signs? Maybe we should go to the county line, or into our homes and stop these gun-toting citizens from even owning a gun. We may even decide that the law is faulty and should be done away with altogether. But that thinking is wrong because it is not the legal gun owner we need to fear. What we should fear is poorly informed and scared bureaucrats who don’t trust the population that they have been charged to protect and defend. And there, I think, is the biggest insult: our commissioner’s court and district judge don’t trust the law or the people who have exercised their rights under that law.
The district judge is an appointment, owing nothing to any voter except to those that voted for the official that is charged with the appointment. This is by design so that we get the best judges on the bench. But it does leave that judge more liable for the political slant of his decisions. Judge Crawford is a fine judge and has shown himself to be capable on the bench. I would hope that his asking for this ban on legally licensed gun owners from our county judge, and in turn from our county commissioners, is not based on a feeling about gun control that is part of his political party affiliation. I feel that he is capable of resisting such pressures. I am greatly dismayed, however, when our county judge says that “for no other reason than the district judge asked” to be the basis of a decision that reverses a legislated right enacted by the people’s elected representatives in the state capitol. Also, I am taken aback when the very man who invited my wife and I to come and earn our conceal carry permits adds his vote to extend the restriction on permit holders from the courtroom, where it has always been banned, to the front doors of the courthouse. My representative to the commissioner’s court went along willingly, and I have no doubt, at the time, felt he was somehow doing someone some good. Political spin aside, the commissioners did not remove legal guns from the courtroom because the CCL has always had them restricted there. This decision simply restricted legal citizens from exercising their rights to carry a concealed gun in the remainder of the courthouse. Courtroom, courthouse — big difference. It ignores the fact that harm can certainly befall anyone outside the courthouse with more certainty than inside the courthouse. Young County has had more shooting incidents outside the courthouse than inside it and that is a fact. There must be another reason for doing what they did. It irks me to think what that reason might have been, because what I thought to be a conservative county court made a horrible liberal decision. The state of Texas had allowed the courthouse ban of CCLs in the courthouse 13 years ago when the law was passed. Many urban, more populated, counties did that very thing. These places tend to be more liberal about some of their thinking, and it was part of a compromise for passage of the law. But why here, in Young County, and why now, 13 years later? It seems to go against the character of the citizens in our county. I mean, we are Texans for gosh sake, in the very best sense of the term. It is hard for me to understand that we did this on the request of one man who was fearful that a legally armed citizen might do harm in the courthouse, even though there is no evidence that a problem exists there that is any greater than outside the courthouse. What happened to make him distrust his fellow citizens who are law abiding, letter of the law, gun-carrying regular folk? Maybe it comes with seeing some of the worst in society from the bench. This was on the backside of the Fort Hood massacre, so maybe the timing was right. Luckily, there were some righteous guns in that room that day at Ft. Hood or that crazy, evil man could have killed many more. Timothy McVeigh didn’t use a gun when he decided to do harm to a courthouse. We can’t stop these people with laws. But, we can hurt this country with misguided restrictions on the rest of us. Maybe our court and elected officials should have asked for some input of the people that elected them before traveling this road. It is a matter that will surely weigh upon the voters come election day. That’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.
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