Can I legally own and keep a gun in an apartment?

Question

I live in texas.

Answer 1

Yes. You are lucky to live in Texas - they have the laxest gun laws!

Answer 2

Yes, you can legally own and keep a gun in your Texas apartment as long as your lease agreement specifically prohits it.

Answer 3

Unless you are a convicted Felon

Gun laws in Texas are very liberal

Answer 4

It seems as though you'd be an exception if you didn't:

"Gun laws in Texas and its neighbors are nearly identical, a far cry from the patchwork blamed for gunrunning between jurisdictions in the East.

There are no city laws -- like the one in Washington, D.C. -- banning guns. Gun laws in Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Arkansas are almost identical to those in Texas. In all of them it is legal to own just about any weapon short of a machine gun or grenade launcher.

"In these states, there's a historical consistency about manliness or testosterone or whatever it is that has to do with owning a gun," said Richard I. Lewis, director of the University of Houston Social Psychology Program. "One shouldn't be surprised that all the laws favor this type of freedom."

There are some small legal variations regarding guns in cars. In Louisiana and New Mexico, the car is considered an extension of the home.

In Oklahoma, a gun in the car must be unloaded and in plain view.

In Texas, a loaded gun in the car is OK as long as you are "traveling," which is defined as driving from one county through another to a third.

Arkansas has a travelling provision, too, which the courts have defined as a journey of at least 21 miles.

In New Mexico, concealed handguns are illegal, but one can be worn in plain view on the hip in a holster.

"This is the Wild West," quipped Kay Roybal, media director for the New Mexico attorney general.

Concealed handgun licensing laws are so alike in the other four states that they are considering reciprocal agreements.

"When we continue to pass these concealed handgun laws and the sky dies not fall, people start coming around," said state Sen. Jerry Patterson, a proponent of the concealed weapons permit approved by the Texas Legislature in 1995. "For example, in D.C. they've created a situation where all the criminals are armed and the citizens are not. That's made things safer? Yeah, that's smart."

More than 150,000 Texans are licensed to carry handguns, and many more have them in their homes. There is a gun show in the Houston area at least once a month.

"Firearms, like it or not, are a part of our society," said Mike Morris of Texas Weapon Collectors Gun Shows Inc. "There's a lot of things that could be done to improve our gun laws, and making new ones ain't one of them."

Handgun Control Inc.'s Joe Sudbay argued that a gun in the home is more likely to kill a loved one than an intruder, and that strict gun control in New York City has helped cut the homicide rate there by 60 percent. But Houston's homicide rate has dropped by a similar percentage without local gun control.

Beyond federal minimums, about the only restriction in Texas or its neighbors is a Texas law, tailored after a Houston city ordinance, prohibiting making a gun available to a minor. The law was passed in response to a rise in accidental shootings by children with their parents' guns.

If the child is caught with the gun, the parent can be charged with a Class C misdemeanor. If the child wounds or kills himself or others, it becomes a Class A misdemeanor.

Arkansas has a law making it a felony to "furnish" a weapon to a minor, but it requires an intentional act, such as actually handing the gun to the child. In Texas, the standard for prosecution is simple negligence.

State statistics show that 147,819 Texans have permits allowing them to carry concealed weapons. But that does not reflect the true number of gun owners, says Jim Brown, legislative director for the Texas State Rifle Association.

"If you take 17 million people in Texas and multiply that by abput three. you've probably got that many guns," he says, basing his estimates on conversations with people throughout the state.

Texans have been permitted to carry concealed weapons since January 1996, so long as they are licensed by the state Department of Public Safety.

Answer 5

Yes you can. However, apartaments (being the landowner) can prohibit them on their property, and I believe most do in their leases. There is a safety issue as well, since sheetrock is pretty much the only thing keeping flying bullets out of your neighbors' homes.

Of course, there's only a handfull of ways they are going to know about it under normal operating conditions.

Answer 6

Yes

Answer 7

If you legally own the gun you can keep it in your home and you do not have to disclose it to your landlord/mortgage company

Answer 8

If you have a concealed hand gun license, and if there is nothing written in your lease to the contrary.

Answer 9

In Texas, probably. Different states have different laws. As long as you don't have any felony convictions, you can probably have as many as you want.

Answer 10

If you buy the gun legally and register it, then yeah, no problem with that. It's your right.