HOUSTON, Texas – Since the civil trial against the parents of accused Santa Fe gunman Dimitrios Pagourtzis on whether they should be held financially liable for damages in the 2018 school shooting, questions are arising about safe storage laws.
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In 2018, when he was 17 years old, authorities said Pagourtzis fatally shot eight students and two teachers.
Pagourtzis, now 23, has been charged with capital murder, but the criminal case has been on hold since November 2019, when he was declared incompetent to stand trial. He is being held at a state mental health facility.
The family members of seven of the people killed in the shooting and four of the 13 injured, have filed a lawsuit claiming Pagourtzis’ parents didn’t do enough to prevent their son from accessing their guns.
During the trial, Pagourtzis’ father said he owned and kept 17 guns inside their home. During the mass shooting at Santa Fe High School, Pagourtzis is accused of using his father’s 12-gauge shotgun and his mother’s .38-caliber handgun.
Whether he got the weapons from the safe or cabinet, and where he found the keys, were points debated during the trial.
“You can’t secure anything 100%,” Antonios Pagourtzis said.
This now poses the question, how do you safely store a firearm inside your home that occupies minors, and what laws are in place for parents who fail to safely store firearms?
In 2022, President Joe Biden signed landmark gun safety legislation following the mass shooting in Uvalde, where 19 students and two teachers were killed by 18-year-old Salvador Ramos.
The legislation toughens background checks for the youngest gun buyers, keeps firearms from more domestic violence offenders, and helps states put in place red flag laws that make it easier for authorities to take weapons from people adjudged to be dangerous.
Since its passing, $85 million in funding has been awarded to 125 school districts across 18 states to help identify students who need mental health care and help them access it.
Section 46.13 of the Texas Penal Code, breaks down how to prevent a firearm accessible to a child. A child is described as a person younger than 17 years of age. Secure is described as taking the steps that a “reasonable person would take to prevent the access to a readily dischargeable firearm by a child, including but not limited to placing a firearm in a locked container or temporarily rendering the firearm inoperable by a trigger lock or other means.”
Child Access Prevention
Under Texas law, if a child under 17 years of age gains access to a readily dischargeable firearm (i.e., loaded with ammunition, whether or not a round is in the chamber), a person may be criminally liable if he or she, “with criminal negligence:”
- Failed to secure the firearm (i.e., to take steps a reasonable person would take to prevent the access to a readily dischargeable firearm by a child, including but not limited to placing a firearm in a locked container or temporarily rendering the firearm inoperable by a trigger lock or other means); or
- Left the firearm in a place to which the person knew or should have known the child would gain access.
A person will not be found guilty under this Texas law if the child accesses the firearm in either of these ways:
- Was supervised by a person older than age 18 and was for hunting, sporting, or other lawful purposes;
- Consisted of lawful defense by the child of people or property;
- Was gained by entering property in violation of this code; or
- Occurred during a time when the actor was engaged in an agricultural enterprise.
Safe Storage
Texas has no laws that require unattended firearms to be stored in a certain way, except in the case of preventing access to children.
Texas also does not require a locking device to accompany the sale of a firearm, and no state statutes require firearm owners to affirmatively lock their weapons.
During the trial, one of the key arguments for the defense was that Pagourtzis’ parents did not have a legal duty to keep their son from accessing the guns since he was 17 and the Texas law stopped at 16. The jury is now deciding whether the parents were negligent given their son’s burgeoning mental illness.