Texas-Book-Gun Law Armed And Educated - Flipbook - Page 237
III. CRIMES AGAINST SOCIETY
Many crimes do not have a direct victim (also known as a
complainant). A person who displays a firearm or discharges a
firearm when it is not a direct threat to a specific individual falls
into this category of crime.
A. Disorderly conduct
People commonly call the display of a handgun “brandishing,”
although this word is not used in the Texas Penal Code. Texas law
criminalizes the general display of a firearm as either disorderly
conduct or deadly conduct. If a person intentionally or knowingly
displays a firearm or other deadly weapon in a public place in a
manner calculated to alarm, this is an act of disorderly conduct.
It is important to remember that this crime includes the display
of any deadly weapon, such as knives and clubs. It also includes
black powder weapons, even though these guns are excluded from
the definition of “firearm” in Texas Penal Code Section 46.01(3).
It is an undisputed historical fact that a lead ball shot from a
black powder gun can kill a human. The complicated language
of the disorderly conduct statute (Texas Penal Code Section
42.01(a)(8)) had gone uninterpreted by the appellate courts for
decades. In May 2019, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals finally
clarified the proper standard to apply to the conduct of a person
who displays a deadly weapon, including a firearm, in public.
“[T]o be guilty of disorderly conduct under Penal Code Section
42.01(a)(8), a person must intentionally and knowingly display a
firearm in a public place in a manner that he knows is likely, under
an objective standard of reasonableness, to frighten the average,
ordinary person.” See State v. Ross, 573 S.W.3d 817, 825 (Tex.
Crim. App. 2019).
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