Austin Nonprofits That Promote Safe Gun Storage Must Follow Written City Rules Starting November 1

The nonprofits that work with the City of Austin to promote safe firearm storage will operate under written city rules for the first time starting November 1. The rules are set out in an October 15 memo from Belinda Weaver, chief of staff to the Austin police chief, addressed to the partners in the city's Firearm Injury Prevention Program, according to KXAN, which read the memo. The program exists to raise awareness of gun safety and gun storage and to educate children on the dangers of unsecured firearms, and the city adopted it in 2022.

The three nonprofit partners named in KXAN's account — Lock Arms for Life, Texas Gun Sense and Central Texas Gun Safety — will be expected, from November 1, to register with the city, to bring no weapons or weapon pieces to third-party events, to notify the Firearm Injury Prevention Program of their events so the program can set its own plans, and to prepare succession plans allowing new leaders to take over their roles. The memo frames the requirements as the standing terms for any organization partnering with the city on the program, whose partners also include, through an October 2023 council-approved agreement, 2-1-1 Texas's work providing free gun locks to callers.

The program grew out of two city council resolutions on safe storage: one directing the city manager to develop gun-safety and gun-storage programming, including public service announcements and work with community partners, and a second directing that gun locks be provided to anyone who requests one. The November 1 rules do not change what the program does; they formalize how the organizations that carry it out alongside the city are registered, equipped at events, and succeeded — paperwork, in other words, catching up with a program that has been running for four years.