Texas House Committee on Community Safety: firearm-related measures

[Itchy Trigger]

This week, the Texas House Committee on Community Safety held its first public hearing on a number of firearm-related measures, so please contact committee members and urge them to SUPPORT or to OPPOSE these bills as indicated below:

 

Support

House Bill 175 (Rep. Matt Schaefer-R)
Expands expungement provisions from last session’s constitutional carry law to include persons who were placed on deferred adjudication community supervision for an offense of unlawful carry of a handgun committed prior to the effective date of the 2021 law.

House Bill 636 (Rep. Jared Patterson-R)
Codifies a 2018 Attorney General opinion to allow election judges who are issued an LTC, to carry handguns in a polling place during early voting and on Election Day. This is a reasonable change to the Texas Penal Code, although NRA-ILA would also support legislation eliminating this unnecessary “gun-free zone” in its entirety.

House Bill 1229 (Rep. Cody Harris-R)
Prohibits state and child placement agencies from requiring foster parents to disclose specific types of firearms and to report any newly-acquired or relinquished guns in the household. NRA-ILA does not oppose foster parents being asked to disclose whether they own firearms or other weapons, but we do object to them being required to provide specific descriptions or a registry of lawfully-owned guns to a state or child placement agency. 

House Bill 1760 (Rep. Cole Hefner-R)
Addresses roving “gun-free” zones created when school activities take place off-campus in public buildings or venues such as the Capitol, zoos and libraries, by limiting restrictions on firearms possession to actual premises owned by and under control of a school, or locations where high school, collegiate, and UIL activities as described in 46.03(a-1)(2) are taking place. Without this important clarification, the “school activities” provision in 46.03(a)(1) can be misapplied to include anyplace students are ever present or anywhere "educational activities" are taking place off-campus. 

House Bill 2454 (Rep. Ryan Guillen-R)
Creates the offense of knowingly acquiring a firearm for a person that is prohibited from possessing a firearm under state or federal law. “Straw purchases” are already illegal under federal law, and this bill allows state and local law enforcement to charge and prosecute for similar offenses.  

 

Oppose

House Bill 902 (Rep. Joe Moody-D)
Creates the offense of knowingly purchasing a magazine or knowingly receiving a magazine as a loan or gift from another while the actor is prohibited from possessing under state or federal law the type of firearm for which the magazine is designed or made. Extending firearm possession prohibitions to firearm magazines invites the type of private transfer restriction or so-called “universal background check” schemes that gun control advocates seek to impose on firearms and ammunition, which are unenforceable without gun registration. Such plans are even more ineffectual for magazines, as they are not typically serialized or otherwise marked to facilitate a regulatory scheme of this type.

House Bill 2076 (Rep. Vikki Goodwin-D)
Expands the current state domestic violence firearms prohibition to include "dating relationships:" relying on definitions in the Texas Family Code that exceed the scope of relationships contemplated in federal law to include anyone with whom you've ever had a romantic relationship. Under the current state prohibitions, “boyfriends” and other intimates are already covered if the relationship has an actual “family” or "household" component (children in common, cohabitation, etc.).