BILL ANALYSIS |
C.S.H.B. 801 |
By: Muņoz, Jr. |
Homeland Security & Public Safety |
Committee Report (Substituted) |
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
It was recently reported that students at a Texas middle school were seriously injured by stray bullets that crossed onto school property as a result of an individual engaging in target practice on a ranch near the school. Interested parties assert that school students, faculty, and parents should not have to worry about being exposed to this kind of danger while on school premises. C.S.H.B. 801 seeks to provide for hunter awareness of the proximity of a school in hunter education programs and certain other materials related to hunting and to require the placement of awareness signs along certain highways and roadways.
|
||||||||||||
RULEMAKING AUTHORITY
It is the committee's opinion that this bill does not expressly grant any additional rulemaking authority to a state officer, department, agency, or institution.
|
||||||||||||
ANALYSIS
C.S.H.B. 801 amends the Parks and Wildlife Code to require the Texas Department of Transportation, at the request of a school district, to place signs in appropriate places along state or federal highways to alert hunters to the proximity of a school and to act jointly with municipalities and counties, as appropriate, to place signs along roadways maintained and operated by a municipality or county to alert hunters to the proximity of a school. The bill requires a school district that requests such a sign to pay the costs of the production and placement of the sign.
C.S.H.B. 801 requires the hunter education program administered by the Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) to include instruction on a hunter's personal responsibility as it applies to the discharge of a firearm. The bill requires TPWD to include in the hunter education program, in any written or Internet-based information produced by TPWD for the public that relates to hunting, and in any curricular materials that relate to hunting, information on awareness of school property and other surroundings and the danger of discharging a firearm across the property line of a school and information on personal responsibility as it applies to the discharge of a firearm.
|
||||||||||||
EFFECTIVE DATE
September 1, 2013.
|
||||||||||||
COMPARISON OF ORIGINAL AND SUBSTITUTE
While C.S.H.B. 801 may differ from the original in minor or nonsubstantive ways, the following comparison is organized and highlighted in a manner that indicates the substantial differences between the introduced and committee substitute versions of the bill.
|
||||||||||||
|