A popular Houston coffee shop and a church in Webster are asking federal judges for one thing: let us keep guns off our property without turning the front doors into billboards.
They’re challenging Texas’ “30.06 ” and “30.07” handgun trespass notice laws—the big, text-heavy signs that many Texans recognize instantly—arguing the state’s required wording and format amount to compelled speech.
In their lawsuit, Bay Area Unitarian Universalist Church and Antidote Coffee argue the mandated signs are divisive and function like a “Scarlet Letter,” pushing people to “deem the establishment to be anti-gun.” The complaint also argues that if owners want to communicate a more nuanced message—respecting the Second Amendment but still prohibiting guns—they’d have to add even more signage to an already crowded entryway.
For the church, the complaint says the signs “detract from the church experience” by making visitors think about guns and criminal enforcement as they walk in—rather than the church’s religious message. The suit describes the church as wanting its building to feel like “a refuge for peace and tranquility,” so the large warnings undermine that.
For Antidote, the lawsuit says the owners worry the first thing customers are forced to think about is “weapons and criminal prosecutions,” and that the size and intrusiveness of the required text pushes the shop into what it calls a “bold political statement” on guns…