Amongst the gun law reforms passed during the last Texas legislative session and signed into law by Governor Abbott: a statute to prevent local governments from infringing on Second Amendment rights in public buildings. The law has real penalties for willful infringement on the right to bear arms of Texans; at least those with accepted carry permits. From texasattorneygeneral.gov . . .
When uncooperative governments post signs to ban Texas citizens from carrying where it is legal, they are breaking the law and infringing on Texans’ Second Amendment rights. Pursuant to Senate Bill 273 passed by the 84th Legislature, citizens may file complaints against these political subdivisions that unlawfully post signs prohibiting concealed weapons on property where concealed handgun license holders are legally permitted to carry.
Individuals who observe violations must first file a complaint with the government that appears to be in violation. If the entity does not remove the sign within three (3) days, citizens may file a complaint with the Texas Attorney General’s Office to investigate the matter and enforce the law. If you believe a political subdivision is unlawfully posting 30.06 signs and you have already filed a complaint with that entity, you may call The Texas Attorney General’s 30.06 Hotline at 1-844-584-3006, or fill out the form below:
Complaints and Investigation Procedures for the 30.06 Concealed Handgun Sign.
Notice that there is a three-step process to complete before a complaint should be sent to the attorney general, Ken Paxton.
First, file a complaint with the local government entity. I recommend taking a picture of the offending sign, preferably with some sort of date/time stamp. Second, wait three days and see if the sign is taken down. If not…third, file a complaint with the attorney general at the convenient website set up for the purpose by AG Ken Paxton.
Several other states have made it illegal for local governments to infringe on the Second Amendment rights of citizens. Some of those states have found that mere illegality wasn’t sufficient to stop scofflaw governments from flagrantly violating the law. Both Florida and Ohio had to reform their preemption laws to create penalties for local government scofflaws.
Ken Paxton has shown that he takes his oath of office and his job seriously. It would not surprise me if Texans move him to a higher office once he finishes his tour as AG.
©2016 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.
Gun Watch
Hasn’t he been charged with securities fraud?
It appears on surface to be similar to the political attacks by indictment on Delay and Perry. Here is an article exploring that:
http://www.mrt.com/opinion/article_ae1f5d26-50c2-11e5-976c-33d5ead2c94a.html
Democrats in Texas cannot seem to win statewide office; but they are quite capable of using prosecutor powers for political purposes.
I cannot say for certain whether there is anything “there” in Paxton’s case, but Delay and Perry’s cases clearly show the use of prosecutorial powers for political purposes.
We live in an age where prosecutors brag about being able to convict anyone of a crime, if they chose to do so.
Certainly, anyone can be charged.
Texas AG Ken Paxton is currently under a three count felony indictment. He can’t even carry a concealed handgun himself.
He’s also facing an ethics investigation by the State Bar of Texas for advising local officials that they could refuse to issue same-sex marriage licenses on religious grounds, despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on the issue.
Initially, the State Bar dismissed this ethics complaint. However, last week the Texas Supreme Court reinstated it and ordered that the complaint be investigated.
Paxton may survive this politically, but he’s heavily damaged and deeply distracted from his duties. He’ll certainly attract primary challengers in 2018.
Why file a complaint against an illegal sign? You can still carry because it’s not a legal sign. If you file a lawsuit, they will just replace it with a legal sign, and no one can carry. Way to be a blue falcon.
I think you are missing the big point. It isn’t about the specific sign being illegal(bad wording, size, etc.). It is about the sign being posted illegally by state or local government agencies. In this case, they can’t place any sign and make it legal. They aren’t talking about whole foods here.
An example of why this matters: If you carry into a police department that has illegally displayed a sign, I doubt they are going to ignore you if they notice you are carrying.
Then the way to fix the issue is to get the entire law that allows a place to post the sign overturned.
The law already says these government entities can’t post signs. Some of them are doing it anyway. This is explaining how to notify the state AG so they can take corrective action if the locality persists in illegal behavior after being notified of such.
The Dude Abides, It was stated in the first sentence of the article. “Amongst the gun law reforms passed during the last Texas legislative session and signed into law by Governor Abbott: a statute to prevent local governments from infringing on Second Amendment rights in public buildings.”
Dude, it’s not that they got the layout of the sign wrong, it’s that state law forbids them from prohibiting carry. Texas legislators were wise enough to realize that some local governments would disobey state law. Therefore, they included a procedure to punish local governments that did.
I have seen some especially bad ones here in Laredo though if you have been here before you would not be surprised.
It doesn’t ever pay for them to respond to the first notice.
There’s always the chance that the complaintant will “forget”
For that matter, they could go through the whole process, “cure” the issue by removing the sign, get a letter from OAG clearing them… and put the sign back up again a month later. Unless the OAG can move directly to the lawsuit on the next complaint, this could go on forever.
“Stop! Or I’ll say ‘Stop!’ again!”
Not a single submission has been ruled on, almost 6 months later after the first ones were put in the system… That’s the gov’t for you.
A clinic in Wichita Falls has posted a generic gunbuster without the 30.06 wording…Should I ignore it? I can’t and probably shouldn’t even bring it up and carry anyway right? This was posted shortly after open carry was passed…
Is it a government clinic? (This article is specifically about governments putting up otherwise-valid 30.06 signs in places it’s illegal to post them.)
No it’s just a general question…
I have used this process here in San Antonio regarding the wrongly worded sign posted on the Main Library’s parking garage (the wording, the fact that is was on a garage, and the existence of the sign itself on a public building) and it worked.
I did the whole thing electronically through the City’s website, received a response from a City official the next morning (I sent the message after closing time) and I haven’t seen the sign since.
There are a lot more illegal 30.07 then there are illegal 30.06 signs in my TX neck of the woods.
Is this diagram intentionally satire or just the most accurate depiction of bureaucracy the government has ever illustrated?
Need to know if the OAG 30.06 complaint form is for 30.07 as well..in Mineola the municipal annex, city hall(which houses water dept), police department all posted 30.06 30.07