Tx Law 62.0121

So here’s a question…
What is allowable under Tx Law 62.0121

b) A person commits an offense if:
(1) the person, while hunting or engaging in recreational shooting, knowingly discharges a firearm; and
(2) the projectile from the firearm travels across a property line.

We hunt on a small property, roughly 60 acres. If I miss while hunting, there is a chance that the projectile from my rifle will cross a property line, possibly multiple. If I read this correctly I am breaking the law? Am I missing something?

Yes, If your shot crosses the line. You really should be elevated on that small of property..

Yes, you would be illegal in shooting across property lines without permission (see the rest of the law you didn't cite).

Also, if somebody is on the property when your bullet goes by, you may get charged with deadly conduct. If you happen to hit a person, you very well may be arrested. Plus, there will undoubtedly be a civil suit.

So the bigger issue isn't just that you are breaking the law, but that you could kill somebody even if you don't think they are there. I pressed charges against 3 idiots shooting across the property line onto my property. They claimed that they didn't think anybody was on my property, as if that made it okay.

Lots of grey area on this law. I had a situation where a guy had a feeder 30’ from our fence line and the guy was shooting towards our property. Game Warden said that “I’d have to prove their bullet was crossing the fence line”.

Be smart and shoot safely

Had a similar situation and the GW "convinced" them to move it.

That's not a grey area. The codified statute is very clear. Just because someone is shooting toward your property line doesn't mean the projectile will cross it. Bad idea to do it, but not probable cause.

Yes, you are breaking the law but I expect it happens regularly. I’ve killed deer and hogs that the bullet passed through and had to enter someone else’s property. I’ve also missed.

My land is long, about a mile, but, in places, not over 300 yards wide. While the odds of actually harming anybody are small, it could happen.

I built a range and the back stop is about 50 ft. from the property line. Nobody lives there and a Dallas investor owns it. He never comes there but the land is regularly poached.

The back stop is RR cross ties, over 6 ft. tall. Behind that is a dirt pile that’s a lot higher than the ties. While the odds of missing the whole thing is low, it could happen.

It's a stupid law passed by stupid and corrupt lawyers.

Just curious, did you happen to watch the video that DNS posted?

While I can't vouch for the disposition of the electorate, I am fairly certain most property owners enjoy the protection of it not being legal for others to shoot willy nilly into their properties.

My idiot neighbors allow guests to visit and point guns right at my property and cows. Their property is under 10 acres with houses around. They get upset when I say anything. I've heard several shots whizz overhead and once had bark from a tree shot scattered in my back yard. City slickers.

I think big moneyed land interests helped get this and trespassing upgrade if crossing fence new with loaded weapon. Not sure if I can understand the validity of anyone being posed to either.

I 100% disagree. As a landowner I don’t want stray bullets flying across my property as I am often outside doing things.

Any responsible shooter should know where their bullet stops - period. By that I don’t mean you need to know the exact location if it is stopping somewhere on your property and you know nothing is in harms way but to fire a bullet and have it go on to someone else’s property where you have no idea what might be in the path is just reckless and should be punished.

^^^^^^^^^
Ignorance.

Is there something new about an upgrade if a firearm is loaded?

I am already aware of the projectile across property line one, the new river law regarding firearms and hunting, the hunting over submerged land one, criminal trespassing where with a weapon which could include anything as simple as a pocket knife that upgrades it to a class A misdemeanor, and parks and wildlife code on the hunting without permission and poaching where killing a big game animal upgrades it to a felony. But I have not heard of anything new that specifies an upgrade triggered by whether a firearm was loaded or not? Or I don't remember it. That is like 5 Texas laws or regs already on the books that in some way relate to trespassing I just listed, so it can be confusing.

At its finest.

Soooo tell us what is corrupt about Texans not having free reign to fire bullets into their neighbors property without their consent?

Nothing new. Several years ago. I remember posts about this when hunters would complain about tracking a target that did not “comply” on the property it was shot on.

Aside from the legality, consider the moral aspect.

Soooo, you sound like a poacher.

If I was a poacher do you really think I would be concerned about legality and asking questions about the law??

My wife has told me I need to work on my brevity, so I apologize if the original post was lacking info. 90%of the time I archery hunt on my 60 acres. My son is now learning to bow hunt as well, but is not yet able to consistently and accurately group his shots so he shoots our rifle now during deer season. Neither one of our blinds or our feeder are on a fence line. We DO NOT, HAVE NOT, and WILL NOT shoot at deer or any other game animal that is on the other side of the fence line. My main concern with this law is the fear that, like many laws, its verbiage can be taken out of context and we as hunters can easily be prosecuted. If I or my son misses, yes it does happen, and/or the bullet ricochets off a rock, I am no longer aware nor am I in control of where the bullet goes. With the long range of modern rifles and ammo, there is always a chance that the projectile can cross a property line, especially when hunting smaller properties. The way I read this law, rifle hunting on properties less than hundreds of acres in size will be at risk even if a hunter does everything right. I was just asking for some clarification, thank you for most of your responses

There is no "out of context." If you, or your son shoots and the bullet hits a rock and goes off property, you or your son is still responsible for it. You aren't in control of it once it leaves the muzzle, but you are still responsible for it. There is no exemption from prosecution because your bullet hit a rock. You or your son still fired the bullet. As they say in self defense classes, "every bullet you fire has a lawyer attached to it" and it won't be yours.

So we should not rifle hunt on any property that is smaller than one mile in diameter based on the possibility a projectile could cross over a property line…..

That wasn’t what he was implying at all. Rather that there is a risk continuum anytime you fire a gun and you have to make the choice to accept or not accept those risks if you want to rifle hunt. A bullet crossing a property line is just one of many risks that go into that decision. For that example though, hunting on a larger property that risk is smaller, on a smaller property the risk is greater, manage your hunting experience to the amount of risk you are comfortable taking

Thank you for clarifying Double AC. I apologize if my response came across as rude…still a little irritated about being called a poacher…. You make a good point, every choice we make has risk involved.

Unless a person has thousands of acres, you cannot possibly keep a bullet contained to your own land. Even if a freak accident were to happen, (ricocheting off a rock and bullet flies 1/4 mile and hits a person) how would anyone ever know where it came from. Hell, there’s plenty of people shooting with as little as 10 acres and you never hear about accidents and you know the media would love to run those stories.

Yes you can.

Ok, that would fall under the criminal trespass that becomes a Class A Misdemeanor if with a weapon and would not matter if a firearm was loaded. I don't think any of that is new. Just more enforced than it used to be.

Several circumstances make criminal trespass an A and they are nothing new. It's always been enforced.

Elevation is the solution. My blinds are on 5ft bases on top of small rises, which puts our guns around 10ft up. We shoot towards feeders 80 -100 yard’s away. In addition, I make sure there’s heavy tree cover on the backside of both feeder pens. Those round’s aren’t going anywhere.

At the risk of sounding like a**, how?

I have hunted several smaller properties, 20 and 50 acres, and there is no way that the bullet ever left the property. By using elevated blinds and natural banks/rises, this is not an issue.
Heck you can shoot at sky-lined animal on 3000 thousand acres and have a bullet leave.
Regardless of property size, shooting toward the ground at a decent angle is a good idea.

Frangible very fast projectiles are a good start. I target shoot into giant stumps that have a tank dam behind them. When I hunt, I shoot into a naturally occurring hill from an elevated position. My gang detective office I supervised had a 75% clearance rate on proving GSW's in Fort Worth. Proving it in a rural area would be so easy it wouldn't even be much of a challenge.

Shoot from elevated positions and you almost eliminate this problem. I have 160 acres and we have elevated blinds at least 10' and Tripods at 12 to 15'.
Why litigate this potential problem just make sure your always shooting in a safe direction.
For sighting we have a hundred yard range shooting down into a gully.
All the speculation will be a waste of time and catastrophic if you shoot someone.

So you think everyone has tank dams and stumps that they are shooting at? Everyone hunts from elevated blinds? You guys are insane if you think that’s the reality. Come to the hill country where all you’ll see from an elevated stand is the top of a cedar juniper. In your fantasy land bullets don’t cross property lines, in the real world they do. Hell I used to live near a range, with a dirt stop behind the targets and I’d always hear bullets ricocheting by.

My point is, not everyone’s land is the same. Great if you guys can 100% of the time guarantee that your bullet isn’t crossing fence lines; but it’s not that way in all of Texas.

I see plenty of videos posted on here by the pig hunters and none of these dudes are shooting from elevated towers and I can assure everyone here, their bullets aren’t all staying on their property.

it doesn't matter how you do it, it's just your responsisbility to be mindful and careful.

I like the law. Gives you some recourse over idiots & poachers/trespassers.

See jimbo's response above. I know that careless accidents happen, and if that careless accident results in putting an innocent person in danger, then the person who was careless should be held accountable. Don't just accept that bullets will from time to time leave your property. Do everything you can to stop that from happening.

You do you but I can guarantee that if a projectile leaves your gun and hits someone on another property, you’re going to jail and you will be destroyed in civil court. As for your previous statement about proving it up, that will be easy.

He wasn't calling you a poacher. He said Soooo sounds like a poacher.

You're not soooo, you're bholland, unless you are running 2 accounts here.

This was previous to the law being passed, but we used to shoot skeet at my dad's property in Wimberly, and the neighbor (who runs an RV park) called the sherriff on us after his residents complained of pellets landing on their roofs. I imagine the wind carried them as we were shooting in the opposite direction. Either way, sherriff came out and toured the property and we were told their was no issue, that he'd being doing the same thing on the property. Next time we shot skeet the neighbor decided to fire a few rounds over our heads from his .357 magnum.

I agree that regardless of the law, you ultimately accept responsibility for every round you fire (morally, if not legally), and should thus plan accordingly.

At any rate, I am enjoying this discussion.

But, garyrapp55, you created the confusion. You replied to bholland not soooo. I often see people doing this. They simply reply using the box at the bottom of the page which replies to the person who started the thread (in this case bholland). Whereas clicking the "Reply" button under each post the reply goes to that person. Compound all that with the username - soooo. Maybe bholland thought you were saying "So, you sound like..." but you're dragging out the So. Yes, silly. But I absolutely see how he thought you were talking to him despite my understanding what was going on. It's not the first time there has been confusion. Again, people need to do better about replying properly. It's not hard.

Mickey Moose, I specifically called soooo out by name. See me quoting myself here to show you? Thanks for your lesson on how to use this forum but it seems I'm not the one in need. What more do you want from me?

A few years back a fellow was target shooting and a bullet traveled away from his property. A boy was hit and died from the injury. I think he was sentenced to some time in prison.. Seems this was in the San Marcos or Buda area.

Seems like a lot of people don’t understand that they are responsible for that bullet during its short life.

We had a THF forum member that had a horse shot from a neighboring target shooter. I bet that got ugly. The thread was removed.

Small properties....reduce your risk.

Increase your angle to the ground.
Shoot into propositioned back stops.
Shoot shotgun slugs.
Shoot subsonic ammo.

If it leaves the property you leave yourself open to legal troubles....

Good video DNS!!!

Hunting 60 acres and you cant hunt in manner where the likelihood of you bullet leaving the property Is nominal ? Impressive

Very

My daughters hunter education teacher had a chart like this when teaching the kids.


https://www.gohunt.com/content/gohunt-101/firearms/the-distance-bullets-travel

It’s typical that whatever you would expect someone not to do in observance of the law or common sense, they’ll do the opposite.

Good stuff here. I remember when I was a kid shooting 22 shorts, the box said Range 1 mile. Be careful. I’ve always remembered that but the chart speaks volumes.

I would be curious to know what the byangle of elevation would be on the 7mm MAG for a distance of 3 1/2 miles?

On level ground, maximum range would be achieved at a 45 degree angle.

No, this is only valid in a vacuum. Somewhere around 32 to 33 degrees is the angle for max distance.

My neighbor with 5 acres has a range set up that is maybe 40 yards from my fence with a small berm. He managed to shoot two top strands in half on my barbed wire fence. I have yet to deal with him, but there is no doubt his rounds are coming on my property. Maybe I need to call the sheriff.

Yeah, I'd say you have a case. I think LEO will leave it up to you on how far they take care of the problem. There's a few of them around on this thread, maybe they'll chime in.

Talk to neighbor first.

I have a guy with a small acreage adjoining one of my properties that just moved in recently. Like your deal he was target shooting with rounds passing through the fence(cutting it) and we have cows. I nicely went over and talked to him and he was a totally cool dude. About a week and a half later I go back there and see a huge back stop. Easy 8' high and ~15' + wide. He had had a big truck load of dirt delivered.

OUTSTANDING

Amazing what can happen when rational people communicate rationally.

I would always use the term reasonable people. Most are but occasionally there’s that one who isn’t.

They're right of course, as much as I hate to make contact with any neighbors. Who knows, after you talk to him, you might even have more to tell the sheriff when you call him.

Wow! I would be very upset if neighbors bullets were coming on our lease. How could anybody deal with that? How could anyone think that's all right?

Verde

You can talk about ideal situations all day long, but the FACT is you're legally responsible for every round that leaves your gun, 3,000 or 20 acres. One is imaginary and the other is real.

And that is the bottom line. You pull the trigger, you own the bullet and are responsible for whatever it does, no matter if you missed your deer, it passed through the deer, or ricocheted and went off property. You own it.