I think the basic misunderstanding is what happens when you are warned. It is not a charge of carrying illegally, but a charge of trespass. In a case like this, nothing changes the law on whether or not you can legally carry (with the minor exception of 46.035 requirements). It is merely whether you are allowed to enter that property or not.cool hand luke wrote:I don't understand why they have to verbally warn you before you can be cited for trespass. It's always a touchy subject when you are waying two peoples rights against each other. Your right to protection, vs. there right to control what is on there private property. In this case I feel pretty strongly that there property rights should be the one that governs. I know I want to have absolute control over what comes in and out of my property, and I don't know why I should have to verbally tell you when I have a sign posted.
I understand requiring a 30.06 sign to get someone for carrying illegally, but not for trespassing.
If you look at the Texas laws on criminal trespass in general (30.05 not 30.06), one of the requirements is always that the owner must notify the person that they may not enter. This notification may take many forms, such as a sign, a locked door, a fence of specific designs, or even a purple stripe painted on trees in certain ways. This seems reasonable to me. You can control your property but you have to let me know what your wishes are.
Along comes the new CHL law and Texas tried to allow a very loose form of notification. As some have already posted, this did not work very well because some property owners did not make their notices clear and still wanted you to understand what they wanted. For example, a small no guns sign posted by the cash register was supposed to mean you could not carry inside the store. So, the legislature tried to make this work for both sides. Property owners could legally ban guns from their property (with very few exceptions such as public property) but they must make their wishes clearly known. When you read the section of the law on 30.06, you can see that the primary purpose of the law was to make the notice conspicuous and clear to the person with a CHL.
Now, then we come up to what really happens in real life and not int he academic discussions of the law. In almost every case I know of, for any criminal trespass charge to stick, there must be some evidence that the person had previously been told to not enter the property. Some cities tried to do this by tracking trespass notices in their computer. In those cases, when someone called the police to file a trespass charge, the police would check their records to see if the person had a warning on file. If so, the case was easily proven in court. If not, the police would generally not file the charge but issue the warning and note it in their records. Other cities would allow the property owner to document through a signed acknowledgement that the property owner kept. In those cases, when the police were called, they needed a copy of the original notice to prove the person had been notified. A sign meeting the requirements provides clear proof to everyone involved. The sign is notice to the CHL and also evidence to the police. It actually can simplify the charge if necessary.
And in other cases, the police would arrive for the disturbance call. When the property owner said he had told the trespasser to leave and the person refused, the police would make him tell the person again in front of them. This was to avoid the trial becoming a "I said leave - He never told me this" type of argument. And this still holds true for 30.06 if there is no sign.
So, the laws on trespassing still work out the same for everyone. You control your property but the person must be given proper notice and the police must have evidence for a trial. And if the person is illegally carrying, then the crime has nothing to do with trespass and all of this is moot.