Texas has a number of laws passed and created to protect people from the dangers associated with guns. Many of the laws are created to protect children and vulnerable populations from the dangers of guns. In our Law in 10 series, Steven Lopez and Justin Hill discuss some of these laws.

Transcript:

Justin Hill: Welcome to Hill Law Firm Cases, a podcast discussing real-world cases handled by Justin Hill and the Hill Law Firm. For confidentiality reasons, names and amounts of any settlements have been removed. However, the facts are real, and these are the cases we handle on a day to day basis.

Steven Lopez: Hi, I'm Steven Lopez here with Justin Hill, we are both attorneys here at the Hill Law Firm. We're going to talk today about a case that we're dealing with here at the firm, and talk about one of the laws that applies to that case, and it has to do with guns safety. We recently started working on a case, Justin, that involves gun safety. It's an unfortunate incident where a person left a loaded firearm in a place where an eight-year-old could readily access it. They ended up gaining access to that gun and losing their life. Today I thought we'd take some time and talk about gun safety and law under the Texas penal code that has to deal with not only a negligent use of a firearm, but what can happen when negligently using that firearm leads to the wrongful death of a child.

Justin Hill: Yes, I think that's a good point for us to move into some of the things that we get calls about at the law firm. Because we'll get calls where people just want advice on the law, which we can't really give advice on the law if we don't represent somebody. We can touch on some of the big parts of the law that we see in our day to day practice, and that's what you're doing here today. In light of this case you just filed up in Bell County. I think it's a perfect time to talk about,firearm safety, and the laws you're going to talk about. Because you yourself, you're kind of a gun guy and a gun owner.

Steven: I don't know if I'd call myself a gun guy. I do own a couple of firearms, I do hold a concealed handgun license. I'm not the person that carries a gun around every single day. I do have a license to do that, I do believe in the second amendment. I also believe that with owning a gun, and especially if you have a concealed handgun license that, that is an awesome responsibility. It comes with just a lot of responsibility in how you use and operate those firearms.

Justin: Yes, I never got my CHL. It's interesting to me to go to the class, but I've always thought it's either going to get stolen. Somebody else is going to get their hands on it. I have some guns, but I didn't mean you were crazy about guns, but you have guns. You're a supporter of the second amendment. You have your CHL. You've been to the class where they teach you a lot about these laws.

Even in light of that, the case where we're suing the man who had a CHL, and still just ignored some of these very important laws. What's the big criminal law we're going to be talking about in that case as we move forward on that Bell County case? So Our listeners can understand, and specifically our gun-owning listeners can understand that there's a lot of responsibilities about owning a gun outside of just what you're taught in the class.

Steven: The law we're going to be talking about today is Texas penal code section 46.13. That's a law that deals with where you can leave your gun when children are around. Just the plain text of the law says, "A person commits an offense if a child gains access to a readily dischargeable firearm, and the person with criminal negligence fails to secure the firearm or left the firearm in a place to which the person knew, or should have known the child would gain