TexasCHLforum.com

Going to a meeting at an office I've never been to before I made the mistake of asking if they had 30.06 signs posted. An inquiry went to their HR department and the person who asked emailed the following response:


No signs posted on the building anywhere, however I did run the question by our HR Dept. -I kept it confidential (just told them a client was asking), and they directed me to the following company policy that prohibits weapons in the workplace:

Weapons in the Workplace

· The Company prohibits all persons who enter company property (including company vehicles) from carrying a handgun, firearm, illegal knives, or prohibited weapon of any kind onto the property regardless of whether the person is licensed to carry the weapon or not.

· This policy applies to all Company employees, contract and temporary employees, visitors, clients and contractors on company property. The only exceptions to this policy are police officers, security guards, or other persons whose profession is to uphold the law.


If I just walked in off the street, with no signs posted, I think this policy would be irrelevant, but since I've been sent an email describing it I'm thinking it may be considered to be the required legal notification and I cannot carry there. Any thoughts?

If it's not in 30.06 specific language (Which, that email is not), and you were not told Orally.

Holds no legal weight.

I know you said you 'made the mistake' which implies you know the below, but I still want to put it here for the benefit of other readers :)
So this is to everyone, not specifically to you

Everyone:
In the future, don't ask, don't tell.
By asking, you make them look it up, and they may think it would be a good idea to post them after all.
Plus, even though it's not legal notice, if something happens, you're going to look bad, having asked, been told, and carried anyways.

In many things, it's sometimes easier/better to ask for forgiveness then permission.
IMO This is one of those situations.

dicion wrote:In the future, don't ask, don't tell.

I wasn't quite as stupid as it sounds. I actually asked a coworker who deals with this company, has been to their offices, and has a CHL himself, if they had signs posted. He said he hadn't seen any signs and decided to call his contact there and ask. I thought the guy he intended to call was someone I had met before and talked with about handguns, and who also had a CHL --but I was mistaken. I quite agree about don't ask, don't tell, and it won't happen again.

You're not stupid; you learned a lesson.

Load up. Cover up. Shut up. Seven syllables. Forrest Gump could deal with that.

- Jim

I obviously am not a Lawyer, but in my mind you have been legally given notice. I am not saying you should or should not carry.

Again, IANAL but, I am a CHL Instructor. I have to agree with purplehood. If the notice came from a person in authority then you've been notified don't carry. If your contact person is not someone in management then you may be OK. I'd like to hear what Charles thinks about this.

It's not only an issue of being legally notified, which the courts would decide five years and fifty thousand dollars down the road. It's an issue of putting a neon sign on one's head that says, "I have a gun."

It just is not going to work in a bureaucratic organization. Not ever. Never.

- Jim

seamusTX wrote:It's not only an issue of being legally notified, which the courts would decide five years and fifty thousand dollars down the road. It's an issue of putting a neon sign on one's head that says, "I have a gun."

It just is not going to work in a bureaucratic organization. Not ever. Never.

- Jim

Of course I'm not going to take any chances --most especially now that attention has been drawn. I'm not interested in being arrested, tried, or convicted of anything. And logically I agree with Purplehood that I have been notified; and I think it would be hard to justify otherwise if I got made.

It might result in a ruling that e-mail was the equivalent of oral notification. Most of us already consider e-mail and text messages to be the same as "talking" or "chatting." Courts have made stranger stretches of logic.

Interesting question.

- Jim

seamusTX wrote:It might result in a ruling that e-mail was the equivalent of oral notification. Most of us already consider e-mail and text messages to be the same as "talking" or "chatting." Courts have made stranger stretches of logic.

Interesting question.

- Jim

The Clinton administration also made electronic communications/signatures a valid legal document. I am relatively sure that would apply to this situation.

I just moved to Texas from Washington state and have been reading up on Texas carry laws to make sure I don’t do something wrong.

GC §411.203. RIGHTS OF EMPLOYERS. This subchapter does not
prevent or otherwise limit the right of a public or private employer to
prohibit persons who are licensed under this subchapter from carrying
a concealed handgun on the premises of the business.

If I understand this correctly and you are an employee then the employer doesn’t need to provide notification.

PC §30.06. (2) (b)
For purposes of this section, a person receives notice if the
owner of the property or someone with apparent authority to act for the
owner provides notice to the person by oral or written communication.

I would think that an email would be considered “written communication”.

These issues have never been tested in court. That is the only way that statutory language is really defined.

- Jim

5pins wrote:If I understand this correctly and you are an employee then the employer doesn’t need to provide notification.

In the situation I'm describing I am not an employee. Using their language I would be a visitor or a client. This company was employed to do work for my company.

VMI77 wrote:

dicion wrote:In the future, don't ask, don't tell.

I wasn't quite as stupid as it sounds. I actually asked a coworker who deals with this company, has been to their offices, and has a CHL himself, if they had signs posted. He said he hadn't seen any signs and decided to call his contact there and ask. I thought the guy he intended to call was someone I had met before and talked with about handguns, and who also had a CHL --but I was mistaken. I quite agree about don't ask, don't tell, and it won't happen again.

Actually, if your coworker forwarded to you a copy of an email originally received from the coworker's contact inside that company, and that contact person was not a person in authority, then here is my interpretation of what has happened:

The 1st party is the HR person who delivered official notification. The 2nd party is the contact person inside that company who received official notification from the 1st party. Your coworker is a 3rd party relative to that notification, and thus may not have received official notification - depending upon whether or not the law considers the 2nd party to have had the authority to deliver official notification. You, however, are the 4th party, and you have not received official notification. Instead, you've received an unofficial written notification based on a questionably official written notification, which was in turn based on the original official oral notification. Unless that person of authority in the HR department informed you directly, you have received no such notice; and pending absence of any 30.06 signs at the entrances, you're good to go from a legal standpoint. It's up to you whether you are comfortable with that or not.

There's a pretty mushy area, in my view, of people's understanding of the law. However, it doesn't need to be that way because the law is pretty explicit about what constitutes notification and who may deliver it. People get confused, in my view, because the law doesn't really cover what happens when that information gets transmitted from the person who was originally notified, to 3rd or 4th parties, and by what means it is transmitted. I think that 3rd parties and further removed than that are most likely safe until the point they themselves actually receive direct notification.

Purplehood wrote:The Clinton administration also made electronic communications/signatures a valid legal document. I am relatively sure that would apply to this situation.

Written notification has to comply with the 30.06 text requirements. The quote from the employee manual doesn't.