Howe ISD has sent families a packet on locking up guns at home, telling parents in a letter from Superintendent Ritchie Bowling that Texas law now requires school districts to share that information.
The district posted the letter and a set of state handouts this week on its online news feed, in English and in Spanish, with a note asking families to look over how they store firearms and to talk about gun safety at home.
What the letter says
Bowling's letter leans on state figures. It says 4,613 Texans died in gun-related deaths in 2021, and it cites the Texas Department of State Health Services for two more numbers: that suicides made up 55% of the state's firearm deaths in 2020, and that firearms were involved in 59% of Texas suicides.
The letter also says suicide attempts involving a gun are fatal 90% of the time.
It then points to Texas Penal Code 46.13. As the letter describes it, a person commits an offense if a child gets hold of a readily dischargeable firearm and the adult, with criminal negligence, either failed to secure the gun or left it somewhere the adult knew or should have known the child could reach.
The letter puts the penalty anywhere from a Class C misdemeanor with a fine of up to $500 to a Class A misdemeanor carrying up to a $4,000 fine, a year in jail, or both.
The letter also notes that firearm safety equipment is exempt from Texas sales tax.
The state's three steps
The handouts come from the Texas Department of Public Safety's Keep 'Em Safe Texas campaign. They boil safe storage down to three steps:
