In Texas, like a lot of other states, private property owners can prohibit lawful concealed carry on their premises so long as they post proper signage. While this is the standard, anti-gun activists and politicians in places like New Jersey and Hawaii would rather see the opposite; concealed carry banned by default unless private property owners explicitly post signage allowing it.
A group of businesses and churches in Texas filed suit challenging the state’s signage statute, backed by Everytown for Gun Safety’s legal wing. The plaintiffs aren’t trying to establish a “vampire rule” through litigation (at least not this time around). Instead, they want to be able to post whatever signage they want to ban guns from their property and not the specific signage mandated by the state of Texas.
Though a U.S. District judge shot down the lawsuit, a three judge panel decided that Bay Area Unitarian Universalist Church and a coffee company called Drink Houston Better, L.L.C (which does business as “Antidote Coffee” and “Perk You Later”, if you want to spend your money elsewhere) had standing to challenge the law on First Amendment grounds; specifically, that these entities “suffer an ongoing injury because they are subject to a statutory scheme that treats varying types of similar speech differently.”
Specifically, property owners who wish to express a prohibition on firearms are treated differently from property owners who wish to express a prohibition on virtually any other item or entrant. Plaintiffs allege this asymmetrical scheme limits their ability to exercise their First Amendment rights to communicate their desire to exclude firearms relative to other property owners who desire to exclude other items via signage.
Plaintiffs seek a declaration that the heightened notice requirements imposed by §§ 30.06(c)(3) and 30.07(c)(3) are unconstitutional and an injunction against their enforcement. If this relief is granted, Plaintiffs can provide “notice” as that word is defined in §30.05(b)—the General Trespass Law—rather than as defined in §§ 30.06 and 30.07. The relief would remove the asymmetrical treatment at the hands of the government as Plaintiffs would be on equal footing with propert owners who exclude other items via the less burdensome § 30.05 compliant signage.
Other circuit courts have held that gun stores can be compelled to post signage warning of the dangers of their products, as well as upholding mandates that FFLs distribute literature to the same effect to all their customers without violating their First Amendment rights. If that’s the case, then I don’t see how the Texas statute can be intrusive on the First Amendment rights of these businesses.
Maybe that explains why the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has now granted a request by the defendants to rehear the case en banc.
The Fifth Circuit has granted the en banc petition in an Everytown-backed lawsuit that claims requiring specific signs in order to ban guns on private property violates the First Amendment. The 3-judge panel ruled that the plaintiffs have standing to challenge the Texas laws: pic.twitter.com/YBOLpvjX0a
— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) September 29, 2025
With that decision, the original ruling by the panel is now vacated and null and void, so the Unitarian Church and the coffee shops will have to continue using the state-mandated signage if they want to ban firearms from their property… or at least if they want patrons who violate their policy to be charged with criminal trespass.
Now, there’s no guarantee that an en banc panel will reach a different conclusion when the case is fully briefed and decided on the merits, but the fact that a majority of judges on the appellate court voted to rehear the case is a bad sign for the plaintiffs, and good news for common sense. I’m as much a fan of the First Amendment as I am the Second, but clearly informing customers that concealed carry is banned from the premise seems like the logical thing to do. Allowing small signs that can easily be overlooked to be used to invoke criminal trespass laws against those exercising their Second Amendment rights, on the other hand, seems like it could lead to a lot of unnecessary problems for gun owners… which is exactly what the gun control lobby wants to see.
Editor’s Note: The gun control lobby is using the judiciary to curtail our Second Amendment rights across the country.
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