The House Public Education Committee heard testimony Thursday for a bill that would allow handguns on public school property in certain situations.

House Bill 1692, filed by state Rep. Cole Hefner, R-Mt. Pleasant, would allow licensed individuals to store a firearm in a locked car that is parked in a school parking lot. The bill has 43 authors and co-authors, both Democrats and Republicans.

"This idea came from a teacher in my district. He called and just said that he wasn’t able to carry in his car and that a lot of times he was at work late at night. When they go home late at night, they had no way to defend themselves," Hefner told the committee.

According the Texas Association of School Boards, which helps draft policies for school districts, state law prohibits concealed handguns from being carried into a school or onto school grounds where a school activity is taking place. According to a Texas Attorney General opinion, if a high school marching band were, for example, to use a parking lot for rehearsal, the school district may restrict firearms from the parking lot during the rehearsal.

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A bill passed in 2011 prohibited employers from restricting their employees from storing lawfully possessed firearms in their vehicles that were parked in their employers’ parking lots. However, school district parking lots were excluded.

Noe Perez, a U.S. government teacher from South Texas, told committee members that the bill would keep school districts from firing teachers who store guns in their cars.

"Teachers should not be put in such a terrible situation to having to choose between their families’ safety and their livelihood," Perez said.

No one spoke against the bill on Thursday.

The committee was also expected to consider House Bill 356 filed by State Rep. Dan Huberty, R-Houston, which would allow licensed superintendents and school board trustees to carry handguns into a school board meeting. Under state law, school board meetings are considered a school activity and guns are prohibited in the meetings.

Huberty has filed such a bill every session since he was elected in 2010. It was the same year that a man in Florida open fired on school board members during a meeting before shooting himself.

"This event highlighted the security concerns of those meetings, which are often conducted with limited public safety/security personnel. We’re here on the dias, we’re able to carry weapons with us. I’ve seen things happen in school board meetings, especially in rural Texas, where they just do it anyways," Huberty said.

Only one person — Rick Briscoe with Open Carry Texas — spoke on the bill early Friday morning. He said he was opposed to HB 356 because it would give privileges to only certain individuals; he wants the right to carry in school board meetings opened up to all licensed carriers.