Weapons Charges Lawyer Houston
Houston, Texas

Texas Gun Charges After Constitutional Carry

Since 2021, most adult Texans can carry a handgun without a license — but Penal Code Chapter 46 still creates serious criminal exposure. Unlawful Carrying of a Weapon (§46.02) still applies to carrying while intoxicated, carrying by people with certain convictions, and carrying anywhere prohibited. Weapons in prohibited places (§46.03) — bars deriving 51%+ from alcohol, schools, polling places, courts, airports — is a felony. And unlawful possession by a felon (§46.04) is a third-degree felony that federal prosecutors can also charge under 18 U.S.C. §922(g) with far harsher sentencing. A weapons charges lawyer Houston trusts to track statute changes flags whether permitless carry protection actually applied to the arrest.

The most common Houston pattern: a traffic stop or DWI arrest turns up a lawfully-owned handgun, and suddenly a misdemeanor night becomes a weapons case — because carrying while intoxicated strips the permitless-carry protection. The second most common: a prior conviction the client thought was ancient makes possession itself the felony. Both patterns are defensible, and both punish delay. A weapons charges lawyer Houston clients hire moves quickly because evidence like dash-cam footage and dispatch logs can be lost within weeks.

Defense Strategy in Weapons Cases

Weapons cases are won at three pressure points. The search: most guns are found in cars — if police lacked a lawful basis to stop or search, suppression ends the case; see when police can search your vehicle. The elements: 'intoxicated' must be proven like a DWI; 'possession' requires knowing care, custody, or control — a gun in a borrowed car is not automatically yours. The status: the five-year clock on felon-in-possession is frequently miscalculated by prosecutors, and old out-of-state or deferred dispositions may not qualify as convictions at all. Herman also defends related charges: deadly conduct, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and weapons enhancements on drug cases. A weapons charges lawyer Houston defendants call after an arrest reviews every stop, search, and status element before advising on a plea.

A distinct but related fact pattern shows up often in Harris County: a driver refuses to pull over for a patrol unit, the stop finally happens a block or two later, and the vehicle search that follows turns up a firearm. That sequence can produce two separate charges from one incident — evading arrest for the flight itself, and a weapons charge for whatever the search finds. The two charges are defended differently: evading turns on intent and whether the stop was lawful in the first place, while the weapons charge turns on possession and whether the search itself was lawful. Because both defenses often depend on the same dashcam and body-camera footage, Herman evaluates stacked evading-and-weapons arrests as one coordinated case rather than two unrelated files.

Texas's License to Carry (LTC) program still matters even after permitless carry took effect in 2021 — an LTC allows carry in a few places permitless carriers cannot go, and reciprocity agreements with other states can affect how an out-of-state visitor's carry status is treated in Harris County. Whether a defendant held an LTC, a lapsed LTC, or no license at all can change the analysis in a §46.02 or §46.03 case, and Herman checks LTC/CHL license history as a matter of course on every weapons arrest.

Deadly Weapon Findings and Parole Eligibility in Texas

A jury or judge's affirmative deadly weapon finding under Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Art. 42A.054 attaches whenever a firearm — or any object the fact-finder determines was used or exhibited as a deadly weapon — is involved in the commission of a felony, even when the underlying charge is not itself a weapons offense. Aggravated robbery, aggravated assault, and even some drug-delivery cases can carry a deadly weapon finding attached to a firearm found nearby. The finding does more than describe the facts: it changes how much of the sentence must actually be served. Under Texas Government Code §508.145(d), a defendant with an affirmative deadly weapon finding is not parole-eligible until serving one-half of the sentence, day for day, with good-conduct-time credit capped and unable to accelerate that calculation. The same finding also forecloses eligibility for a jury-recommended term of regular community supervision in most felony cases.

A weapons charges lawyer Houston clients retain contests the deadly weapon finding with the same intensity as the underlying charge, because eliminating the finding — even when the conviction itself is not in dispute — can shorten actual time served by years. Effective defense strategies include disputing whether the object meets the statutory definition of a deadly weapon, challenging whether the weapon was genuinely "used or exhibited" rather than merely present in a vehicle or residence, and negotiating the finding out of a plea agreement during charge negotiations. Herman evaluates every felony case involving a firearm for the presence of a deadly weapon allegation before advising a client on plea strategy, because the parole math attached to the finding often matters more to total time served than the base offense level itself. The deadly weapon allegation must be specifically pleaded by the state before trial and found true by the jury or judge at sentencing — it does not attach automatically simply because a firearm was present at the scene, which creates a distinct pleading-based defense in many cases.

Prohibited Weapons Under Texas Penal Code §46.05

Separate from the carry statutes, Texas Penal Code §46.05 criminalizes the possession, manufacture, transport, repair, or sale of a defined list of prohibited weapons: explosive weapons, machine guns, short-barrel firearms (a rifle with a barrel under 16 inches or a shotgun with a barrel under 18 inches, or any such weapon with an overall length under 26 inches), firearm silencers not registered under federal law, armor-piercing ammunition, chemical dispensing devices, zip guns, and tire-deflation devices. Possession of a prohibited weapon is a third-degree felony under Texas law, carrying 2 to 10 years in TDCJ, with narrow statutory exceptions for licensed collectors, dealers, and law enforcement.

Federal law under the National Firearms Act, 26 U.S.C. Chapter 53, separately regulates many of the same items — short-barrel rifles, short-barrel shotguns, machine guns, and suppressors — through a registration and tax-stamp system administered by the ATF. A single unregistered suppressor or an inch of missing barrel length can generate parallel state and federal prosecution exposure. A weapons charges lawyer Houston relies on for §46.05 cases obtains the manufacturer's specifications and independently verifies barrel and overall length measurements, because a fraction of an inch determines whether an item is a prohibited weapon at all or a lawfully ownable firearm. Registration status under the NFA is also checked immediately, since a properly registered short-barrel rifle or suppressor is a complete defense to the state prohibited-weapon charge.

Weapons & Gun Charges Questions

Related Pages

Criminal Defense Overview, Drug Crimes, Felony Charges, Assault & Battery, Evading Arrest