|
Senate Bill 1189 |
Senate Author: Huffman |
|
Effective: 9-1-13 |
House Sponsor: Fletcher |
Senate Bill 1189 amends the Health and Safety Code and Code of Criminal Procedure to authorize a peace officer who without a warrant takes a person into custody for emergency detention due to mental illness to immediately seize any firearm found in the person's possession and to require the officer, after seizing the firearm, to follow certain procedures in disposing of the weapon. The bill sets out provisions regarding the officer's duty to provide the detained person with a receipt for the firearm and notice of the procedure for the firearm's return and regarding the duty of the law enforcement agency holding the firearm to provide notice of that procedure to the detained person or the person's closest immediate family member. The bill establishes procedures for the applicable law enforcement agency to follow depending on whether the detained person is released or is ordered to receive inpatient mental health services and also establishes procedures, in the case of a person who is ordered to receive those services, for the release of the firearm to the person's designee or to the agency holding the firearm for its sale by a federally licensed firearms dealer. The bill sets out disposition procedures for a seized firearm that is wholly or partly owned by a person other than the person taken into custody. The bill authorizes a law enforcement agency to have the seized firearm sold by a federally licensed firearms dealer if a person to whom the agency provided notice regarding disposition or another lawful owner of the firearm does not submit a written request to the agency for the firearm's return by a specified date after the notice was provided and requires the proceeds from the sale to be given to the firearm's owner, less the cost of administering the sale. The bill prohibits an unclaimed firearm that was seized from a person taken into custody from being destroyed or forfeited to the state.