Untitled Texas Attorney General Opinion: KP-0501

October 29, 2025

The Honorable Glen Harwood
142nd Judicial District Attorney
500 North Loraine Street, Suite 200
Midland, Texas 79701

Opinion No. KP-0501

Re: The carrying of concealed firearms in courtrooms by the District Attorney and
Assistant District Attorneys under Texas Penal Code § 46.15(a)(6) and (a)(7)
(RQ-0598-KP)

Dear Mr. Harwood:

Your inquiry concerns the right to lawfully carry a concealed firearm in court. 1 For context,
you explain that you and your assistant district attorneys are licensed to carry concealed firearms.
Request Letter at 1. “Certain district judges and county court-at-law judges” have nonetheless
implemented a policy that prohibits any person “who is not a bailiff or peace officer from carrying
a firearm in government courts in Midland County.” Id. You also indicate that the Court Security
Committee is contemplating enacting an identical policy. Id. at 1−2. In light of these
circumstances, you ask whether the Penal Code provides “affirmative statutory authority for
licensed prosecutors to carry concealed firearms in government courts in the ordinary course of
their duties” or serves merely as a defense to prosecution. Id. at 1. You also ask whether “a district
or county court-at-law judge” has authority to “forbid the carrying of concealed firearms by
licensed prosecutors” in the judge’s respective court and, relatedly, whether the Court Security
Committee has authority to implement the same policy for “courts in Midland County.” Id.

Texas has drawn upon history and tradition to maximize law-abiding citizens’
affirmative right to publicly carry firearms through statutory defenses and
exceptions.

It is well known that “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms[] shall not be
infringed.” U.S. CONST. amend. II; accord TEX. CONST. art. I, § 23 (“Every citizen shall have the
right to keep and bear arms in the lawful defence of himself or the State[] . . . .”). This guarantee
represents a “fundamental,” “necessary” pillar of “our system of ordered liberty,” McDonald v.

1
Letter from Mr. Glenn Harwood, Midland Cnty. Dist. Att’y, to Hon. Ken Paxton, Tex. Att’y Gen. at 1
(May 2, 2025), https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/request-files/request/2025/RQ0598KP.pdf
(“Request Letter”).
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City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742, 778 (2010), which “secures for Americans a means of self-
defense,” United States v. Rahimi, 602 U.S. 680, 690 (2024); see also, e.g., District of Columbia
v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 592 (2008) (highlighting the “individual right to possess and carry
weapons”); N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1, 32 (2022) (highlighting the right
to “carry[] handguns publicly for self-defense”). But the right does not derive from government; it
precedes the Constitution, which simply “recognizes [its] pre-existence.” Heller, 554 U.S. at 592.

Indeed, “[t]he spark that ignited the American Revolution was struck” against this reality.
Rahimi, 602 U.S. at 690; see also, e.g., Heller, 554 U.S. at 594. During “the tumultuous decades
of the 1760’s and 1770’s, the Crown began to disarm” American colonies—whose response drew
from “their rights as Englishmen to keep arms.” Heller, 554 U.S. at 594. Early “Americans
understood the ‘right of self-preservation’ as permitting a citizen to ‘repe[l] force by force’ when
‘the intervention of society in his behalf[] may be too late to prevent an injury.’” Id. at 595
(alteration in original) (quoting 1 BLACKSTONE’S COMMENTARIES 145–46, n.42 (1803)). It thus
comes as little surprise that the first shots of the Revolutionary War were preceded by a British
officer’s futile command: “[T]hrow down your Arms and disperse.” Wednesday’s Post, THE
DERBY MERCURY, May 26, 1775, at 3 (reprinting ESSEX GAZETTE (Salem) (Apr. 25, 1775)).

This lesson was not soon forgotten. During the Reconstruction era, too, it was understood
that to “[d]isarm a community” is to “rob them of the means of defending life” and “liberty” alike.
Rahimi, 602 U.S. at 690 (quoting CONG. GLOBE, 40th Cong., 2d Sess. 1967 (1868)). Though
“Union Army commanders took steps to secure the right of all citizens to keep and bear arms, . . .
Congress concluded that legislative action was necessary.” McDonald, 561 U.S. at 773 (footnote
omitted). This resulted in statutes like “the Freedmen’s Bureau Act of 1866, which provided
that . . . ‘the constitutional right to bear arms[] shall be secured to and enjoyed by all the
citizens . . . without respect to race or color.’” Id. (alteration in original) (emphasis omitted)
(quoting Freedmen’s Bureau Act, ch. 200, 14 Stat. 176–77 (1866)). Likewise, “Congress’s desire
to enable the newly freed slaves to defend themselves against former Confederates helped inspire
the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, which secured the right to bear arms against
interference by the States.” Rahimi, 602 U.S. at 690.

Texas inherited and expanded upon this fundamentally American sentiment. See generally
Stephen P. Halbrook, The Right to Bear Arms in Texas: The Intent of the Framers of the Bills of
Rights, 41 BAYLOR L. REV. 629, 634 (1989) (observing “[t]he right to keep and bear arms was both
a republican principle[] . . . and a practical necessity for the early settlers”). Not only did the Texas
Declaration of Independence make express note of Santa Anna’s demand that Texans “deliver up
our arms,” THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE para. 13 (Tex. 1836) (highlighting they are
“essential to our defence, the rightful property of freemen, and formidable only to tyrannical
governments”), but the Constitution of the Republic of Texas—an “independent, national
constitution” from which our modern charter derives, Davenport v. Garcia, 834 S.W.2d 4, 15
(Tex. 1992)—expressly confirmed that “[e]very citizen shall have the right to bear arms in defence
of himself and the republic.” REPUB. TEX. CONST. art. XIV, reprinted in 1 H.P.N. Gammel, The
Laws of Texas 1822–1897 (Austin, Gammel Book Co. 1898). This guarantee was rooted in the
observance that “[t]he right of a citizen to bear arms, in the lawful defense of himself or the state,
is absolute” and “does not derive from the state government[] but directly from the sovereign
convention of the people that framed [it].” Cockrum v. State, 24 Tex. 394, 401–02 (1859); accord
The Honorable Glen Harwood - Page 3

Heller, 554 U.S. at 592. Recognition of gun rights therefore continued unabated in each
constitution that followed, TEX. CONST. art. I, § 13 (1845); TEX. CONST. art. I, § 13 (1861); TEX.
CONST. art. I, § 13 (1866); TEX. CONST. art. I, § 13 (1869); TEX. CONST. art. I, § 23 (1876), and
forever memorialized “a strong moral check against the usurpation of arbitrary power by rulers,”
TEX. CONST. art. I, § 23 interp. commentary (West 2022).

This truth persisted even in the aftermath of our Civil War. Gun rights advanced liberty for
freed, black Texans who famously “procured great numbers of old army muskets and revolvers”
in order “to protect themselves” with “vigor and audacity.” Bruen, 597 U.S. at 62 (quoting S. Exec.
Doc. No. 43, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., at 8 (1866)). “[B]ands of armed whites [were nonetheless]
traversing the country” and “forcibly robbing the freedmen of their arms,” which led to predictions
“that the law-abiding will be compelled, in the exercise of the sacred right of self defense, to
organize for their own protection.” 2 Halbrook, supra, at 654–55 (citations and internal quotations
omitted). Seeking to avoid widespread conflict, however, the Texas Legislature enacted a
controversial law “to regulate the keeping and bearing of deadly weapons,” which “[f]or the first
time . . . prohibited the bearing of all arms other than rifles and shotguns at any place off of one’s
premises.” Id. at 657–58 (citing Act of Apr. 12, 1871, 12th Leg., R.S., ch. 34, § 1, 1871 Tex. Gen.
Laws 25, 25, reprinted in 6 H.P.N. Gammel, The Laws of Texas 1822–1897, at 927 (Austin,
Gammel Book Co. 1898)) (internal quotations omitted). Though the Texas Supreme Court
ultimately held the law constitutional—in a pair of cases the U.S. Supreme Court later described
as “outliers” that “provide little insight into how postbellum courts viewed the right to carry
protected arms in public,” Bruen, 597 U.S. at 6—it did so only after emphasizing the law “ma[de]
all necessary exceptions[] . . . [for] deadly weapons [to] be carried as [a] means of self-defense.”
English v. State, 35 Tex. 473, 477 (1872); see also State v. Duke, 42 Tex. 455, 459 (1875) (noting
the law “appear[ed] to have respected the right to carry a pistol openly . . . for self-defense”).

The ensuing constitutional convention set out to include “as many safeguards as possible
to prevent the recurrence of such widespread and flagrant abuse of power,” A.J. Thomas, Jr. &
Ann Van Wynen Thomas, The Texas Constitution of 1876, 35 TEX. L. REV. 907, 913 (1957)—
including the “broad legislative power in the 1869 Constitution and . . . the unpopular 1871 act,”
Halbrook, supra, at 668. This resulted in the Constitution of 1876, which still governs to this day,
and courts thereafter reaffirmed the long-prevailing ethos that had shaped most of Texas history:
“[H]aving arms for [a person’s] own defence and that of the State[] . . . is one of the surest
safeguards of liberty and self-preservation,” representing “[o]ne of [the] most sacred rights” that
“is not within the scope of legislative authority” to remove. Jennings v. State, 5 Tex. Ct. App. 298,
300–01 (1878).

2
Perhaps the most prominent example lies in “the infamous Colfax Massacre in Louisiana on Easter Sunday
1873,” where scores of black Louisianans “were slaughtered by a rival band of armed white men.” McDonald, 561
U.S. at 757. The echoes of carnage eventually reached the Supreme Court, which confirmed that the right to bear arms
was not “in any manner dependent on [the Constitution] for its existence,” United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542,
555 (1875), but in the same breath followed the misguided course struck three years earlier—leaving the protection
of natural, unalienable rights to states alone and hollowing the Privileges or Immunities Clause. McDonald, 561 U.S.
at 855–56 (Thomas, J., concurring in part) (observing that “Cruikshank is,” in this sense, “not a precedent entitled to
any respect”).
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Still, the twentieth century harkened a more restrictive national sentiment on firearms.
Prohibitions on carrying a concealed firearm were often extended to “all carrying, whether
concealed or open,” Robert J. Spitzer, Gun Law History in the United States and Second
Amendment Rights, 80 LAW & CONTEMP. PROBS. 55, 64–65 (2017), and Texas generally followed
suit. See, e.g., TEX. PENAL CODE art. 483 (Vernon’s 1948) (prohibiting “[u]nlawfully carrying
arms”); see also, e.g., Occupation Tax on Sale of Pistols, 42d Leg., R.S., ch. 267, § 1, 1931 Tex.
Gen. Laws 447, 447–48 (requiring a government-issued “certificate of good character” to purchase
a handgun). This a-constitutional trend reached its zenith during the 1970s and 1980s, a period
during which “carrying a gun in public[] was forbidden for many law-abiding citizens” and
“[c]ourts put up no resistance to gun restrictions.” Renée Lettow Lerner, The Resilience of
Substantive Rights and the False Hope of Procedural Rights: The Case of the Second Amendment
and the Seventh Amendment, 116 NW. U.L. REV. 275, 308–09 (2021). Yet the states reclaimed
their constitutional mantle once it became clear that these restrictive policies failed to achieve the
stated goal of stemming rising crime rates. “Florida became the first state with major urban
populations to ensure that almost all law-abiding adults could get a concealed-carry permit,” id. at
311; see also Jack Hagler Self Defense Act, ch. 87-24, § 2, 1987 Fla. Laws 135 (amending FLA.
STAT. § 790.06), and Texas soon followed.

In 1995, Texas inaugurated a quarter-century effort to expand the scope of gun rights—
beginning with its concealed-carry licensing framework. See generally Act of May 16, 1995, 74th
Leg., R.S., ch. 229, 1995 Tex. Gen. Laws 1998, 1998–2015. The Legislature decriminalized the
licensed possession of a concealed handgun not by an affirmative statement of right but through
enumerated defenses to unlawful “carrying.” Id. § 2 at 2013. This statutory overhaul also identified
the locations in which licensed carry was not permitted and began removing political subdivisions’
regulatory authority over the same. Id. §§ 2–4, 7 at 2013–15. Not long after, the Legislature
enacted Penal Code section 30.06 to specify the narrow grounds on which licensed possession of
a concealed firearm could constitute trespass. Act of May 29, 1997, 75th Leg., R.S., ch. 1261, § 23,
1997 Tex. Gen. Laws 4766, 4775–76. The years that followed saw a steady expansion of eligibility
for licensure, Act of May 23, 2005, 79th Leg., R.S., ch. 486, § 1, 2005 Tex. Gen. Laws 1347, 1347
(adding Government Code subsections 411.172(g) and 411.172(h)); Act of May 18, 2021, 87th
Leg., R.S., ch. 203, §§ 1–2, 2021 Tex. Gen. Laws 447, 447–48 (adding Government Code
subsection 411.172(i) and section 411.1735), and the Penal Code’s geographic restrictions on
lawful possession shrank as the Legislature legalized yet more license-based conduct by way of
defenses and exceptions, see, e.g., Act of May 31, 2003, 78th Leg., R.S. ch. 1178, § 1, 2003 Tex.
Gen. Laws 3364, 3364 (narrowing the scope of firearm-related trespass through Penal Code
subsections 30.05(f) and 30.06(e)); see also, e.g., Act of May 23, 2007, 80th Leg., R.S., ch. 693,
§§ 1–2, 2007 Tex. Gen. Laws 1318, 1318 (narrowing the scope of unlawful possession under Penal
Code section 46.02); Act of May 24, 2007, 80th Leg., R.S., ch. 1214, §§ 1–2, 2007 Tex. Gen. Laws
4100, 4100–01 (same, bailiffs licensed to conceal carry); Act of May 25, 2007, 80th Leg., R.S.,
ch. 1222, § 6, 2007 Tex. Gen. Laws 4117, 4119 (same, various licensed prosecutors); Act of May
26, 2017, 85th Leg., R.S., ch. 1143, §§ 8–9, 11–13, 2017 Tex. Gen. Laws 4355, 4357–59 (adding
defenses for volunteer emergency services personnel and federal prosecutors); Act of May 2, 2019,
86th Leg., R.S., ch. 39, §§ 2–3, 2019 Tex. Gen. Laws 82, 83–85 (adding various defenses to
trespass on the basis of licensed carry); Act of May 28, 2021, 87th Leg., R.S., ch. 1008, §§ 5–6,
2021 Tex. Gen. Laws 2679, 2680 (same, hotel guests). The Legislature also expanded the means
by which license holders could lawfully carry firearms. See Act of May 27, 2015, 84th Leg., R.S.,
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ch. 437, §§ 16–28, 47, 2015 Tex. Gen. Laws 1706, 1710–14, 1719 (amending Government Code
chapter 411, subchapter H, and the predecessor to Penal Code section 46.03); Act of May 20, 2021,
87th Leg., R.S., ch. 481, §§ 1–5, 2021 Tex. Gen. Laws 968, 968–70 (amending holstering
requirements); see also, e.g., State v. Ross, 573 S.W.3d 817, 825 (Tex. Crim. App. 2019).

“[U]ncooperative” government entities nonetheless tried to restrict the breadth of Texans’
firearm rights amid this legislative renaissance and purported to “ban Texas citizens from carrying
where it [was] legal.” S. Rsch. Ctr., Bill Analysis, Tex. S.B. 273, 84th Leg., R.S. (2015). In turn,
the Legislature expressly prohibited political subdivisions from frustrating the democratic
premium placed on licensed possession, Act of May 23, 2015, 84th Leg., R.S., ch. 593, § 1, 2015
Tex. Gen. Laws 2000, 2000–01 (adding Government Code section 411.209)—eventually going as
far as to forbid “any action” that “states or implies” otherwise and subjecting violators to daily
civil penalties, mandamus, and other equitable relief. 3 Act of May 21, 2019, 86th Leg., R.S.,
ch. 784, § 1, 2019 Tex. Gen. Laws 2229, 2229–30 (amending Government Code section 411.209).
Notably, the only exception to this embargo resided with refusing licensed carry in statutorily
prohibited locations. Id. § 1(a) at 2229 (codified at TEX. GOV’T CODE § 411.209(a)).

The Legislature punctuated these efforts with the Firearm Carry Act of 2021, which
amended a host of Texas statutes to once more increase the scope of lawful firearm possession and
include unlicensed carry. 87th Leg., R.S., ch. 809, 2021 Tex. Gen. Laws 1960, 1960–73
(amending, inter alia, the Code of Criminal Procedure, Government Code, Local Government
Code, and Penal Code). As a result, Texans who met age- and record-based qualifications could
carry a handgun in public—openly or concealed—without a license. Id. Realizing that “[t]he
Legislature determines public policy through the statutes it passes,” Fairfield Ins. Co. v. Stephens
Martin Paving, LP, 246 S.W.3d 653, 665 (Tex. 2008), the quarter century leading to the Firearm
Carry Act of 2021 made clear that law-abiding Texans possess an affirmative right to publicly
possess firearms in fora “not expressly prohibited by law.” See generally S. Rsch. Ctr., Bill
Analysis, Tex. H.B. 2112, 87th Leg., R.S. (2021); S. Rsch. Ctr., Bill Analysis, Tex. S.B. 550, 87th
Leg., R.S. (2021) (same).

Penal Code section 46.15 vests certain persons with an affirmative right to lawfully
carry firearms in locations that are otherwise prohibited to others.

Whether section 46.15 authorizes prosecutors to carry concealed firearms with a license in
state courts is, ultimately, a question of statutory construction. This requires that we “ascertain[]
and giv[e] effect to the Legislature’s intent as expressed by the plain and common meaning of the
statute’s words.” F.F.P. Operating Partners, L.P. v. Duenez, 237 S.W.3d 680, 683 (Tex. 2007). In
doing so, we must “presume the Legislature selected statutory words, phrases, and expressions

3
Notably, this office withdrew KP-0108—an opinion that correctly observed neither section 30.06 nor 30.07
could be read to prohibit a license holder from carrying a firearm on government-owned property but did not interpret
the current, broader version of Government Code section 411.209—given the State Fair of Texas’ inappropriate
reliance on the outdated statement of law contained therein. See generally TEX. ATT’Y GEN., OPINIONS OVERRULED,
MODIFIED, AFFIRMED, WITHDRAWN, https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/opinions/opinions-overruled-modified-
affirmed-withdrawn (last visited Sept. 11, 2025).
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deliberately and purposefully and was just as careful in selecting the words, phrases, and
expressions that were included or omitted.” In re Xerox Corp., 555 S.W.3d 518, 527 (Tex. 2018).

Here, the statutory text is clear. Section 46.02 of the Penal Code criminalizes the unlawful
carrying of weapons under a variety of circumstances, 4 TEX. PENAL CODE § 46.02, and offenses
thereunder range in gravity, id. § 46.02(d)–(e). Section 46.03, on the other hand, prohibits licensees
from carrying firearms and other prohibited weapons in certain specified locations such as “the
premises of any government court or offices utilized by the court, unless pursuant to written
regulations or written authorization of the court.” 5 Id. § 46.03(a)(3). Yet subsection 46.15(a)
unambiguously states that Penal Code “[s]ections 46.02 and 46.03 do not apply to” certain
persons—like district attorneys and assistant district attorneys—who are “licensed to carry a
handgun under Subchapter H, Chapter 411, [of the] Government Code.” 6 Id. § 46.15(a)(6)–(7).

The consequence of this exception is unmistakable. Unlike ordinary licensees who are
prohibited from carrying firearms in court unless expressly authorized, id. § 46.03(a)(3), the
individuals listed in subsection 46.15(a) need not seek leave from a prohibition that does not apply
in the first instance. We therefore disagree with the Midland County Attorney’s suggestion that
subsection 46.03(a)(3) somehow vests the judiciary with “ultimate discretion as to the admission
of firearms [by district attorneys] into the courtroom.” 7 This reading contradicts the plain language
of the Legislature’s carefully crafted framework and betrays the “cardinal rule . . . that each
sentence, clause, phrase and word be given effect if reasonably possible.” Morter v. State, 551
S.W.2d 715, 718 (Tex. Crim. App. 1977); see also, e.g., ANTONIN SCALIA & BRYAN A. GARNER,
READING LAW: THE INTERPRETATION OF LEGAL TEXTS 180 (2012) (explaining “[t]he imperative
of harmony among provisions is more categorical than most other canons of construction because
it is invariably true that intelligent drafters do not contradict themselves”). It follows that the
Midland County District Attorney—like all other individuals expressly named in section
46.15(a)—possesses an affirmative right to carry a concealed firearm onto the premises of state
courts. 8 See, e.g., Tex. Att’y Gen. Op. No. KP-0332 (2020) at 4 (concluding a prosecuting
attorney’s investigator is authorized to carry a firearm in court under subsection 46.15(a)(1)).

4
We note that at least one court found Penal Code section 46.02 unconstitutional to the extent it prohibited
“law-abiding 18-to-20-year-olds from carrying handguns for self-defense outside the home based solely on their age”
because the “statutory scheme violate[d] the Second Amendment.” Firearms Pol’y Coal., Inc. v. McCraw, 623 F.
Supp. 3d 740, 758 (N.D. Tex. 2022).
5
In construing this provision, we have acknowledged that a state governmental entity may prohibit handguns
from only those locations governed by Penal Code section 46.03. See Tex. Att’y Gen. Op. No. KP-0047 (2015) at 3.
6
We were not asked and offer no comment on whether a concealed handgun license similarly excepts
enumerated individuals from the prohibition on other weapons, for which a license to conceal carry a firearm would
serve no purpose, listed in the Penal Code. See generally TEX. PENAL CODE § 46.03(a) (addressing the possession of
“a firearm” in addition to a “location-restricted knife, club, or prohibited weapon listed in Section 46.05(a)”).
Brief from Hon. Russell W. Malm, Midland Cnty. Att’y., to Op. Comm. at 4 (May 14, 2025) (“Midland
7

County Attorney Brief”) (on file with the Op. Comm.).
8
You do not ask about a district attorney’s right to licensed, concealed carry in proceedings where they
appear as a named party or witness—instead acknowledging that a judge could validly exclude a licensee from
possessing a firearm in such scenarios—nor does your inquiry call for us to address the notion of concealed carry in
federal court. Request Letter at 1–4. We therefore offer no comment on either topic.
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History, too, confirms what is otherwise apparent on the face of the Penal Code. Before
2005, judges were permitted to “carry concealed firearms in and on the premises of a state
courthouse, in addition to other places prohibited to those with a concealed carry license.”
H. Comm. on Law Enf’t, Bill Analysis, Tex. C.S.H.B. 2110, 79th Leg., R.S. (2005). But the law
did “not make similar allowances for district attorneys who [were] also under the threat of
retaliation or retribution from violent defendants,” and courthouse shootings “in Tyler, Texas and
Atlanta, Georgia” prompted the amendment of Texas Penal Code section 46.15 to grant district
attorneys the same privileges given “that people [were] willing to commit violent acts and target
those individuals directly involved in the prosecution of defendants.” Id. Later, the Legislature
again expanded section 46.15—once more providing an express exception to what was otherwise
prohibited, 9 see supra pp. 4–5—to provide assistant district attorneys with the same protection that
both district attorneys and judges had come to enjoy. H. Comm. on Law Enf’t, Bill Analysis, Tex.
C.S.H.B. 2300, 80th Leg., R.S. (2007).

Taken together, the plain text of the Penal Code and statutory history leave no doubt that
district attorneys and assistant district attorneys with concealed-carry licenses possess an
affirmative right to carry concealed firearms in court.

Neither a judge nor court security committee can categorically prohibit lawful
concealed carry by district attorneys or their assistants.

You also tell us that some local courts already ban licensed, concealed carry of handguns
in courtrooms for all but bailiffs and peace officers. 10 Request Letter at 2. Likewise, you explain
that your local court security committee proposes to implement an identical policy—aiming to
promote “general courtroom safety,” prevent any negative “effects that a concealed weapon
inadvertently seen by a witness or juror may have on fairness in a proceeding,” and avoid “the
potential volatile situations in which an armed individual may be a party or witness . . . in a divorce
or child custody proceeding,” id. at 2, 4. As explained below, however, these ends cannot justify
the categorical means you describe.

It is axiomatic that all Texas courts are invested with the “judicial power of this State.”
TEX. CONST. art. V, § 1. Yet that power is not unbounded. See generally Tex. Att’y Gen. Op. No.
KP-0489 (2025) at 2–4, 15–18 (detailing the constitutional breadth of “the judicial power” and the
extent to which certain “orders” are coram non judice); see also, e.g., In re State, 162 S.W.3d 672,
678 (Tex. App.—El Paso 2005, no pet.) (concluding a court did not have “express, inherent, or
implied grant of power” to act). The judicial power “includes two broad categories: ‘jurisdictional
power’ and ‘administrative powers.’” Tex. Dep’t of Fam. & Protective Servs. v. Grassroots

9
This belies the need to distinguish our prior reference to Penal Code “exceptions,” Tex. Att’y Gen. Op.
No. KP-0332 (2020) at 2, from our present recognition of an affirmative right. Both the text and history of the Penal
Code reveal that the two are, for present purposes, one in the same.
10
The Midland County Attorney implies that these policies are memorialized by court order, asserting that
the Penal Code cannot “grant the right to carry firearms against court orders.” Midland County Attorney Brief at 4.
But not all “orders” are valid exercises of the judicial power, Tex. Att’y Gen. Op. No. KP-0489 (2025) at 2–4, 15–18
(detailing the extent to which certain “orders” are coram non judice), and we are aware of no “orders” that are said to
arise from a constitutionally cognizable exercise of jurisdiction. We therefore speak generally to the propriety of a
categorical ban on licensed concealed carry by district attorneys and their assistants in court.
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Leadership, Inc., 717 S.W.3d 854, 867–68 (Tex. 2025). While the former implicates “power ‘to
adjudicate cases or liquidate law’” in constitutionally cognizable controversies, id. at 868 (quoting
Webster v. Comm’n for Law. Discipline, 704 S.W.3d 478, 489 (Tex. 2024)), administrative powers
sound in the judiciary’s “inherent” authority, Webster, 704 S.W.3d at 494 (discussing the Texas
Supreme Court’s power to regulate the practice of law). Inherent authority derives “from the very
fact that the court has been created and charged by the constitution with certain duties and
responsibilities,” and a court “may call upon [this power] to aid in the exercise of its jurisdiction,
in the administration of justice, and in the preservation of its independence and integrity.”
Eichelberger v. Eichelberger, 582 S.W.2d 395, 398 (Tex. 1979); accord Webster, 704 S.W.3d at
494; see also, e.g., TEX. GOV’T CODE § 21.001(a). From this flows the power to “command respect
and decorum in courtroom proceedings,” Brewer v. Lennox Hearth Prods., LLC, 601 S.W.3d 704,
729–30 (Tex. 2020), and justice requires that “dignity, order, and decorum be the hallmarks of all
court proceedings in our country,” Illinois v. Allen, 397 U.S. 337, 343–44 (1970).

It is thus well accepted that courts are “vested, by their very creation, with power to impose
silence, respect, and decorum, in their presence, and submission to their lawful mandates.”
Chambers v. NASCO, Inc., 501 U.S. 32, 43 (1991) (quoting Anderson v. Dunn, 19 U.S. (6 Wheat.)
204, 227 (1821)). This includes sanctioning behavior “even when the offensive conduct is not
explicitly prohibited by statute, rule, or other authority.” Brewer, 601 S.W.3d at 718. Nonetheless,
“‘inherent powers must be exercised with restraint[,] discretion’ and ‘great caution’” in light of
“their very potency” as well as the fact that “inherent powers are shielded from direct democratic
controls.’” Id. at 717–19 (alteration in original) (footnote omitted) (citations omitted). The
authority to maintain courtroom decorum and facilitate the administration of justice must prove
“consistent with the [C]onstitution and statutes.” State v. Nunez, 704 S.W.3d 598, 621–22 (Tex.
App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2024, pet. ref’d) (mem. op.) (quoting In re State ex rel. Skurka, 512
S.W.3d 444, 452 (Tex. App.—Corpus Christi–Edinburg 2016, no pet.)); see also, e.g., Tex. Att’y
Gen. Op. No. 0490 (2025) at 2–8 (endorsing the Supreme Court of Texas’ authority to promulgate
rules consistent with the Constitution and relevant state laws). This alone demonstrates the
impropriety of a categorical prohibition on district attorneys or their assistants from licensed
concealed carry in court—let alone outside of a justiciable controversy pertaining thereto, Tex.
Att’y Gen. Op. No. KP-0489 (2025) at 2–4, 15–18—simply because they happen to practice in
Midland County. See generally TEX. PENAL CODE § 46.15(a)(6)–(7).

To be sure, district and county court judges possess express authority to adopt “local rules
of administration.” TEX. GOV’T CODE § 74.093(a); TEX. R. JUD. ADMIN. 9(b), reprinted in TEX.
GOV’T CODE, tit. 2, subtit. F app. These rules pertain to docketing, assignment, and transfer of
cases, TEX. R. JUD. ADMIN. 9(b)(1), in addition to “any other matter necessary to carry out this
chapter or to improve the administration and management of the court system and its auxiliary
services,” TEX. GOV’T CODE § 74.093(c)(4); see also id. § 74.092 (discussing similar duties of a
local administrative judge). Furthermore, a court security committee established by the local
administrative judge is required to “adopt security policies and procedures.” TEX. GOV’T
CODE § 74.092(a)(13). But these local rules and policies “must not be inconsistent with other laws
or rules.” TEX. R. JUD. ADMIN. 10(a); accord TEX. R. CIV. P. 3a(b) (requiring the same for “[l]ocal
rules, forms, and standing orders”). Indeed, “local court rules do not trump . . . any other statutory
requirement” or constitutionally guaranteed right. In re Rino-K&K Compression, Inc., 656 S.W.3d
The Honorable Glen Harwood - Page 9

153, 160 (Tex. App.—Eastland 2022, no pet.). A district attorney’s authority to lawfully carry a
concealed firearm in court, pursuant to Penal Code section 46.15, is no exception.

The foregoing is further reinforced by the longstanding constitutional reality that “[n]o
power of suspending laws in this State shall be exercised except by the Legislature.” TEX. CONST.
art. I, § 28. Only the Legislature possesses “the legislative power,” id. art. III, § 1, which
encompasses “the power to make, alter, and repeal laws.” In re Tex. Dep’t of Fam. & Protective
Servs., 660 S.W.3d 161, 169–70 (quoting Diaz v. State, 68 S.W.3d 680, 685 (Tex. App.—El Paso
2000, pet. denied)). The judicial power, on the other hand, does not countenance limitless authority
to suspend a valid statute. State v. Ferguson, 125 S.W.2d 272, 276 (Tex. 1939) (orig. proceeding);
accord Hous. Chron. Publ’g Co. v. Mattox, 767 S.W.2d 695, 698 (Tex. 1989); see also, e.g., Tex.
Att’y Gen. Op. No. KP-0489 (2025) at 2–4, 15–18. This is all to say that “constitutional problems
arise when one branch pushes beyond the boundaries to interfere with another branch’s exercise
of its constitutional powers.” Webster, 704 S.W.3d at 487; accord In re Tex. House of
Representatives, 702 S.W.3d 330, 345 (Tex. 2024). Here, the categorical prohibition you describe
vitiates the Legislature’s decades-long effort to craft a concealed-carry framework that vests
specified licensees with more authority than is otherwise available to the general public. See supra
pp. 4–5, 7. Put simply, “[t]o state the nature of [Midland County’s desired policy] is to reveal the
lack of power in a judge or court to enter it.” Ferguson, 125 S.W.2d at 276.
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S U M M A R Y

While the judiciary possesses broad authority over
courtrooms, that authority does not license a categorical prohibition
on lawful forms of concealed carry by individuals—like district
attorneys and their assistants—who are expressly exempted from
Texas Penal Code sections 46.02 and 46.03.

Very truly yours,

KEN PAXTON
Attorney General of Texas

BRENT WEBSTER
First Assistant Attorney General

LESLEY FRENCH
Chief of Staff

JOSH RENO
Deputy Attorney General for Criminal Justice

D. FORREST BRUMBAUGH
Deputy Attorney General for Legal Counsel

JOSHUA C. FIVESON
Chair, Opinion Committee

AMY L. K. WILLS
Assistant Attorney General, Opinion Committee