Texas-Book-Gun Law Armed And Educated - Flipbook - Page 410
establish negligent entrustment under Texas law. Stephen should
prevail in any lawsuit. First, there are no facts that suggest Gene
was incompetent or reckless. Further, there are no facts showing
Stephen’s knowledge that Gene was either incompetent or reckless.
Thus, the negligent entrustment claim would legally fail.
Many plaintiffs have urged Texas appellate courts to adopt a “strict
liability” standard when looking at gun cases. In other words, if you
give someone your gun, you are automatically liable for whatever
happens. Texas appellate courts have, to-date, uniformly rejected a
strict liability standard.
3. Is negligent storage of a firearm recognized in Texas?
A question commonly asked by gun owners is, “if someone steals
my gun, am I liable if they shoot someone?” In other words, if I
store my gun and a criminal or another less-than-responsible person
gets the gun, am I liable if they shoot someone? As of the date of
this publication, the answer in Texas is “probably not.” A Texas
appellate court has affirmatively stated that the claim of negligent
storage of a firearm is not recognized in Texas. Richardson, et al.
v. Crawford, No. 10-11-00089-CV, 2011 LEXIS 6578 (Tex. App.—
Waco 2011). What does this mean? If someone accesses your gun
and you did not intend for them to access your gun, since Texas
does not currently recognize this claim, a plaintiff should not be
able to recover if the person who accesses your gun injures himself
or others.
Several caveats to this exist:
1) many other states do recognize this claim;
2) until the Texas Supreme Court rules on this issue, it is possible
that another appellate court in Texas could decide differently;
and
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