TexasCHLforum.com

Sewer_Ice wrote:This is included, in both federal and state CHL laws. It's any school owned and operated premises, where premises is a building or part of a building.

Until I get my CHL, I have a hard getting anywhere, school along the road one exit, administration building, AND a storage facility they use space in.
I only know of the storage facility because there was an incident in high school where some students bought alcohol from the gas station between the admin building and the storage... Same penalties as if they bought the alcohol on campus.
The Statues state that any premises used or leased for school activities counts.

I am not as sure as you that an administrative office is included. The problem you might have in clarifying this is that different statutes define the school grounds different ways. For example, the federal gun free act makes it illegal to have a firearm on public property within 1000 feet of a school. This includes all of the grounds around most schools and even ground off the school. But the code we need to worry about is the Texas Penal Code and it states a school or educational institution. The administrative center is not a school. It is debatable either way if it is an educational institution (the primary purpose of the activities in this building being administration and not education) even though it is related to education.

So, instead of the administration center, lets look at a different building to see if it would be covered. One example is the Small business Development Center that UTSA runs. It is located (last time I looked anyway) on the old Kelly AFB, well away from any of the school campuses frequented by students. It is not a school and has nothing to do with education as the term is generally used. Since it is still state property, I would guess that it is legal to carry there and a 30.06 sign would be null and void. Of course, knowing the average school administration, I am sure UTSA would argue with me about that and claim the law does apply. We have had this same debate in here about hospitals that are affiliated with schools. Are the hospitals part of the school? What about the medical office buildings owned by the hospital but separate (leased out to various doctors, etc.)?

And, to be fair, I cannot say for sure that the law does not include the administrative office, the hospital, and even the medical office buildings, as part of the school. I do not think they are, but that would only help if I were the officer that showed up to handle the call. This is why I would like to get a clear definition in place of the current one. I like the idea of substituting "public or private primary or secondary education institutions" but I think it has a snowball's chances in July in South Texas.

I think the correct answer to this question is "I don't know." There is no definition in the Penal Code of a school and out opinions have run all over the place. As far as I know, all of the public and private primary, secondary, and higher learning institutions have taken the law to include their campuses. I know some have taken pre-schools to be included too (especially when tied to a regular school district to really muddy things). What about church schools, like Sunday School? what about private for-profit schools that are not accredited, like the Hallmark Institute (I have no idea why anyone would go there, but..)? What about dance, driving, or trade schools (look at all the private "medical assistant' schools)? If you really want to go crazy, what about firearms schools?

This is going to take a new law or a court case to clarify. I want to make the law specifically say primary and secondary schools as defined in the Education Code, but I don't think it would pass. We will have a hard time getting a law passed to narrow this.