What defines "grounds" (with scenarios)

[jmra]

It is easy for me to say it is legal to carry in your scenarios. Please keep in mind that what is legal and what the campus Police perceive as legal might not always be the same. I would hope your CHL Instructor explained to you that there are many gray areas and misunderstandings in CHL law. I was recently told by an Assistant DA in Houston that Church carry is always illegal. Even after telling him the law and the section of the code, he still insisted it was not legal. ( he had no legal basis for this, just his gut feeling) You quoted the law and you can read it as well as any Instructor. Sometimes the best answer is "use your best judgement."

The ADA that you spoke to is an idiot. The law regarding church carry is very clear - you are good to go unless it is posted with a 30.06 compliant sign, you have received verbal notice from someone with authority to speak for the organization, or you were given a card with proper 30.06 wording.
If the ADA doesn't get that he needs to find another line of work.

Sounds like a good place to stay away from with an ADA like that. Wonder how many people are wrongly prosecuted in their area?

With his obvious mental handicap I'm surprised he can successfully prosecute anyone at all.

[n5wd]

Ahem.... getting back to the original question...

Grounds, as you're describing and asking them, would be anywhere on school property where they're having a class or organized after-school activity. i.e., I would often use a portion of one of our parking lots for my engineering class, when they needed more concrete than a sidewalk provided for one of their projects. In that case.. a CHL walking up to where we were to see what we were doing would be in violation of the law, as I understand it. IANAL, and like another has suggested, it's always up to the discretion of the law officer and the prosecutor whether they're going to charge you with something.

So, with that understood, here are my answers for your questions:
#1 - a CHL carrying in his car and/or parking lot on school property. No, as long as you did not enter the stadium, my reading of the law suggests that you would not be in violation of the law, since you were not in the physical premises of a school or educational institution, or any grounds or building in which an activity is being conducted. The stadium would be such a premises, and would be out-of-bounds.

#2 - a CHL watching a non school-sponsored game on on a practice field on school property, and the CHL watching from a "private walkway on the school property". I don't know how that could happen, since the walkways on school property would be owned by the school district. And yes, if you were at the practice field and it was a school sponsored team, then you would be in violation as I read the law.

#3 - a CHL watching a non-school sponsored football...err... soccer game (sorry, it's what my wife "learned me" to call the game we Yanks know as soccer) game on a college campus, and observed the game from a private walkway. Again, I'm not sure how the walkways in between soccer fields can be "private", but .... if you're on the college campus property, then you should be OK, since the activity was not school sponsored and you are not inside a premises (i.e. a building or portion of a building).

Again, IANAL and YMMV. Ad infinitum.