DEPARTMENT: City Attorney's Office
DEPARTMENT HEAD: Andrew Segovia, City Attorney
COUNCIL DISTRICTS IMPACTED: City-wide
SUBJECT:
Actions available to cities regarding firearms and gun violence.
SUMMARY:
The vast majority of local-level authority to regulate guns is preempted by state law. Some action is possible in the areas of land use/zoning, magistration and conditions of bond, procurement, and incentives.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION:
Cities have very little ability to adopt actions that regulate guns/firearms. Local Government Code Section 229.001 prohibits, with minor exceptions, cities from adopting regulations relating to the transfer, private ownership, keeping, transportation, licensing, or registration of firearms, air guns, knives, ammunition, or firearm or air gun supplies or the discharge of a firearm or air gun at a sport shooting range.
Regulation of land use and zoning is specifically recognized as an available area for cities. The city may also adopt policies that take firearm safety and gun violence into account in its procurement process, incentive policies, and in setting the conditions of bond in the magistration of criminal cases at the detention center.
In addition to the above, Texas Governor Greg Abbott published a School and Firearm Safety Action Plan on May 30, 2018. Within that plan there are a few possible options for the City to support or adopt. Two such potential options that the City could support are as follows:
1. Promoting awareness of safe storage practice by promoting voluntary use of gun locks and increasing notification and awareness of the law; and
2. Mandating that gun owners report their lost or stolen guns within 10 days, and a violation of this law is a Class C misdemeanor.
ISSUE:
The City can consider the following as possible areas for addressing guns/firearms:
A. Land use/zoning
Consider the creation of a category of land use for "gun/firearm sales" in the Unified Development Code.
B. Bonds
Magistrate...
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