Texas-Book-Gun Law Armed And Educated - Flipbook - Page 331
EXAMPLE:
Joe, an 18-year-old, legally carries a handgun in his car for
protection. One day Joe goes to visit his old friend Sam, at Sam’s
jewelry store. During this visit, Sam has to go take care of an
emergency at home, and instead of closing the store, he asks Joe
to watch his store. Sam leaves, and Joe goes out to get his gun
and take it into Sam’s store for protection in case it gets robbed.
While Joe is not carrying under the authority of Texas Constitutional
Carry or an LTC, Joe is in legal possession of his handgun while in
Sam’s store. Sam has explicitly left Joe with the authority to control
who can come into his store; therefore, it is now a premises under
his control. Issues involving “premises under a person’s control”
have been scarcely litigated in the history of Texas jurisprudence.
Since the Gibbs case in 1913, there has been little commentary on
what it means to have premises under a person’s control.
In 1973, the Texas Attorney General issued an opinion in an attempt
to clarify further what this term really means: “While control
need not be exclusive of others, it must be a real right to exercise
some dominion over the premises... The person in question must
actually have the right to exercise some control over the conduct of
other persons upon the premises although his control need not be
exclusive.” Op. Tex. Att’y Gen. No. H-185 (1973). Of course, since
1913, and even since 1973, what can be considered a premises has
evolved, and today the term also includes recreational vehicles.
In September of 2014, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
held that this includes the common area of condominiums (not
apartments) where a person has an undivided ownership interest
in the common areas. See Chiarini v. State, 442 S.W.3d 318 (Tex.
Crim. App. 2014).
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