The Michigan Senate, voting purely along party lines, passed an 11-bill "gun safety" package of red flag laws and requirements for safe storage and universal background checks in mid-March. (Related: Sale of bump stocks resumes in three states as feds miss deadline to appeal overturning of ban.)
The vote on the package came about a month after a mass shooting on the campus of Michigan State University (MSU) that left four dead, including the perpetrator. The last time Michigan Democrats attempted to push through anti-gun legislation in 2021, they didn't have the numbers to make up a majority in either chamber of the state legislature.
Much of the legislation that the state senate passed was crafted in response to the 2021 shooting and was reintroduced by the now Democrat-controlled state senate.
The legislation requires anyone in the state attempting to purchase a rifle or shotgun to undergo a background check and register for any firearm purchase. Current state law only requires background checks for handgun purchases.
The package also implements safe storage laws, which would create strong "penalties for storing or leaving a firearm where it may be accessed by a minor."
Furthermore, the bills allow law enforcement officers and family members of gun owners to petition a court to temporarily take away the guns of those deemed by the state to be too dangerous to own firearms.
The bill package has been sent to the state House of Representatives, where it is currently working its way through. The Democratic majority in the House is expected to pass the package with little to no revision, and Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has already expressed her intention to sign the package into law once it reaches her desk.
"Gun safety" bills do not directly address issues regarding school safety
Zoe Warren, discussing the bill passed in the Michigan Senate on his program "2A For Today" on The New American, noted that none of the bills passed actually "directly aim to solve the crisis of school safety."
Instead, Warren noted that Michigan Democrats only seem to be concerned with "imposing stricter regulations on law-abiding gun owners."
"The Democrats in Michigan are bent on ensuring that Michiganders must ask their state government for permission to express their God-given right to keep and bear arms," he added. "Red flag laws are the stuff of Orwellian nightmare."
Republicans in the Michigan Legislature are of the same sentiment. Instead of red flag laws, they want to see better enforcement of already-existing state laws. They note that the MSU shooting suspect was charged with a crime that would have precluded him from future legal gun ownership before he and the prosecutors agreed to a deal and a lesser charge.
State Sen. Joseph Bellino called the red flag bills "severely flawed" and said the package would not have stopped the shooting at MSU.
"They will give people a sense of false security, all while infringing on everyone's right to own a firearm to hunt, or even to defend themselves," he said.
Learn more about gun laws in the United States at Guns.news.
Watch this clip from "2A For Today" on The New American as host Zoe Warren discusses the Michigan Democratic Party's latest attempt to restrict the Second Amendment rights of Michiganders.
This video is from the channel The New American on Brighteon.com.
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