Texas Safety Action Report Released In Wake Of Mass Shootings

AUSTIN, TX — Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday unveiled the Texas Safety Action Report in the wake of recent mass shootings in the cities of El Paso and Odessa.

The report is the culmination of "weeks of meetings with nearly 50 experts in the aftermath of tragedies across the state," the governor wrote on his website. The report, Abbott said, elaborates on the Executive Orders issued last week aimed to bolster public safety coordination in preventing mass shootings. "The Texas Safety Action Report also provides additional ideas for the Texas Legislature and state agencies to consider that can make our communities safer while also respecting the Constitution," Abbott, a prominent gun rights advocate, noted.

The governor's Texas Safety Commission convened community leaders, law enforcement officials, federal officials, business representatives, faith leaders, tech experts, counselors, advocates, lawmakers, and survivors of mass shootings to study what has happened, identify any shortcomings in our current systems, and explore ways to prevent these horrific tragedies from taking place, he said. Outlined strategies in the report are a result of these meetings, he added.

Read Gov. Abbott’s full Texas Safety Action Report

"We must act with resolve in response to the despicable acts of violence we have witnessed in Texas,"Abbott said in a prepared statement. "Solving the problems that have led to these horrific events will take more than governmental action. The complete solution will require more than what is outlined in this paper. It will require parents, families, churches, law enforcement, community groups, schools, and others working together to fortify the social fabric of our society. Texans are at our best when we are tested. Together, we will transcend this test, and forge an even better future for our state."

The governor's office provided a summary of the Texas Safety Action Report:

Additional Executive Actions

• Strengthen Domestic Violence High Risk Teams across the state.
• Expand law enforcement training offered through the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training (ALERRT) Center at Texas State University, and develop a public awareness campaign for the “Avoid, Deny, Defend” program.
• Refresh training for all licensed peace officers on the procedures and criteria for “emergency detention”.
• Educate physicians and behavioral health professionals about the law concerning disclosure of confidential information to law enforcement.
• DPS should coordinate with fusion centers across the state to promote continuous improvement and accountability.
• Accelerate the development and implementation of the DPS safe firearm storage campaign, supported by the recent $1 million appropriation.

Firearm Safety

• The Legislature should consider expediting the reporting of criminal convictions to the Texas Department of Public Safety.
• The Legislature should consider prohibiting straw purchases of firearms under state law. A primary goal is to keep guns out of the hands of criminals while protecting the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens.
• The Legislature should consider laws that crack down on criminals who try to illegally buy or possess guns.
• The Legislature should consider requiring courts to inform convicted criminals, both orally and in writing, that they may no longer possess firearms.
• The Legislature should consider stiffer consequences for criminals convicted of violent offenses.
• The Legislature could consider requiring that any stolen firearms be reported to the county sheriff within 10 days of when the owner becomes aware of the theft.
• The Legislature should consider ways to make it easy, affordable, and beneficial for a private seller of firearms to voluntarily use background checks when selling firearms to strangers.
• The Legislature should consider prohibiting juvenile offenders convicted of certain violent crimes from legally purchasing firearms.
• The Legislature should spur cooperation to encourage social media companies to report suspicious activity to law enforcement.
• The Legislature should consider implementing and funding a Texas program, similar to federal initiatives, which uses a multi-pronged strategy of policing and prosecution, agency integration, and identification of violent crime hot spots. The focus would be on criminals with guns, not law-abiding Texans.
• The Legislature should consider a law that works in conjunction with the proposed federal “Protecting Communities and Preserving the Second Amendment Act” of 2019.

Additional Strategies

• The Legislature should work with the TEA to develop strategies to improve parental engagement in schools.
• When updating the Health TEKS, the State Board of Education (SBOE) should emphasize student mental health issues, including depression, social media immersion, and drug abuse.
• The Legislature should consider amending state law to ensure schools are notified when former students are arrested.

Eight people (including the gunman) were killed in an Odessa shooting spree on Aug. 31 in an attack that injured 25 others (including three police officers). Days before in El Paso, a gunman with an expressed intent to kill Latino residents shot and killed 22 people while injuring 24 others.

In response to the report, officials at Texas Gun Sense— advocates for "common sense, evidence-based policies to reduce gun injuries and deaths" as described on their website — said they were "stunned" by what they suggested were two glaring omissions in the way of "red flag" laws related to universal background checks and Extreme Risk Protection Orders (ERP).

"The governor failed Texans in refusing to call for universal background checks, including closing the loopholes of private sales," Texas Gun Sense officials said. "His call for encouraging private sellers to perform background checks is simplistic at best because private sellers can opt now to get background checks performed and too many do not."

Advocacy group officials noted Extreme Risk Protection Orders "save lives in other states—including other states who have passed the legislation in a bipartisan way."

Notwithstanding such criticism, Texas Gun Sense officials acknowledged there were some good ideas outlined in the report "that could have happened much sooner if the legislature had acted on legislation. Those ideas, officials said, include efforts to:

• Prohibit straw purchases,
• Punish people who lie and try to purchase firearms,
• Require reporting of stolen guns.

"We support the governor’s request for accelerating the development and implementation of the safe firearm storage campaign," officials said. "In addition, we know that a statewide sustained effort could responsibly spend more to drill down specific messages to specific areas and repeatedly re-enforce the message."
Texas Gun Sense provided a link to their own policy recommendations. For more information about gun violence and gun violence prevention, visit the group's website at: www.txgunsense.org.