These past two weeks have been heartbreaking and frightening and maddening, with 18-year-olds in tactical gear, wielding weapons of war, murdering supermarket shoppers and elementary school students, and state and federal politicians in thrall to the gun culture refusing to address reasonable solutions. There are no superheroes on the horizon; in Texas, the much-ballyhooed good guys with guns turned out to be not that good. These past two weeks have been death and evil locked and loaded, rending families and communities.
If only something could be done.
Some are saying that this latest school shooting feels different, that enough people are calling bullshit on the status quo, that there is enough rage aimed at our politicians that they may do something this time to make us all safer.
The losses have been staggering. And through it all the political brazenness of Republicans is gobsmacking — the party that doesn’t trust American educators to teach history, instead wants to arm those same educators to protect their students from mass shooters with high-capacity magazines.
How is any of this OK? Why must we suffer because gun companies want to sell their weapons of mass murder? Why are people allowed to own weapons that frighten — hell, that out-power — good guys with guns? Why do we expect our law enforcement community to triumph over murderers with deadlier guns?
It’s maddening, I tell you, and even more maddening is that here in Michigan, two dozen bills dealing with common-sense gun regulations have been waiting for action for months. TWO DOZEN BILLS are languishing in committee because Michigan’s Republican state senators, including Livingston County’s own Lana Theis, are blocking votes from taking place.
How does this work to keep us safe?
Just last week, on Wednesday, May 25 — the day after the horrific slaughter of 19 students and two teachers in Texas by a tactical gear-wearing teen firing an AR-style weapon — Michigan Democrats tried to force a floor vote on a gun safe storage bill that has been waiting for months.
Republicans blocked action on a party-line vote; the bill, once again, sits in committee, and all we can do is wonder why.
Why are there 24 common-sense gun control bills languishing in committee? Why are Michigan’s Republicans refusing to take action?
You might think there’s some wild legislation in those bills — like confiscating every firearm in Michigan — but you’d be wrong. Nowhere in any of those bills is the outlawing of firearms, or the confiscation of weapons.
The bills are just common-sense legislation.
Of the 24 bills, 8 are part of a package on safe gun storage; 6 create guidelines for universal background checks; 4 better protect victims of domestic violence; 4 impose limits on magazine capacity and require owners of high-capacity magazines to register their stockpiles; one creates funding for gun violence prevention in Ingham County; and one allows local governments to ban guns on property they own.
Not a single bill pries a gun out of anyone’s fingers.
And, yet, Republicans are blocking the bills from a vote.
Not even the mass shooting just six months ago at Oxford High School in which four students were killed and seven people injured moved Michigan’s Republicans to action.
All we can do is wonder why.
It’s not that the Legislature is not accustomed to acting quickly and decisively to protect constituents after a terrible tragedy.
Consider one of the toughest stories we covered at the local paper during my tenure: it was the heart-wrenching 2003 accident in which a minivan carrying 8 young people crashed on Hogback Road near Fowlerville, killing 4 of its passengers — including the 16-year-old driver — and injuring the rest.
The crash ripped at our hearts. Much like in Uvalde, these kids and their families were part of the community, and the grief over their deaths spread far and wide.
To an attempt to ensure similar tragedies never happened again, then-state Rep. Dan Gustafson, a Republican from Williamston (whose district included the Livingston County townships of Conway, Cohoctah, Deerfield, Tyrone, Handy, Howell, Iosco, Unadilla and Putnam), introduced legislation that created Michigan’s current graduated drivers license system.
The legislation understood that young drivers are far more dangerous to others — and themselves — than all other drivers because they lack experience and well-developed judgment. It’s not their fault that they’re young, but there were things adults felt could be done to make them safer. Among those things is a limit on the number of passengers — aka, distractions — a 16-year-old driver can have in a vehicle, as well as the hours they can be on the road.
There was no political theater surrounding the legislation, which presented a common-sense solution to a sometimes-deadly situation.
So, the question after two deadly mass shootings in 10 days — atrocities committed by 18-year-old males wearing body armor and wielding weapons of war — is whether there should be new legislation or changes made to existing laws regarding firearms. And consider that there have been 230 mass shootings so far this year.
I want to know why Republicans think doing nothing is our only option. If only the energy like that state Sen. Lana Theis put into trying to dictate on which team a trans athlete could play instead be put into common-sense gun legislation to keep all our children safer.
Here is the list of bills languishing in committee in Lansing:
Large capacity magazines
Since the federal ban on large-capacity magazines ended, nine states and the District of Columbia havebanned them. At the moment, Michigan is NOT one of those states.
The question should be whether these large-capacity magazines be available. Is it a good idea to make it possible for a shooter to fire 100 rounds in just 10 seconds without reloading? Consider that just six months ago, at Oxford High School, a Sig Sauer SP 2022 9mm semi-automatic pistol with two 15-round magazines was used to murder 4 and wound 7.
A 2019 study found that states NOT banning large-capacity magazines experience twice the rate of high-fatality mass shootings. That same study, published in the American Journal of Public Health, found that states without bans also have three times the annual rate of firearm deaths.
Seems to me that banning large capacity magazines is a political win-win for legislators. But for whatever reason, it hasn’t been the case in Michigan.
House Bills 5627–5628 & Senate Bills 785–786 would prohibit selling or possessing a magazine capable of holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition, beginning on Jan. 1, 2023. The bills were introduced on Dec. 9, 2021.
Protecting Victims of Domestic Violence
Consider that every month, an average of 70 women in the U.S. are shot and killed by an intimate partner. Abusers with firearms are five times more likely to kill their victims. Nearly 1 million women alive today have reported being shot or shot at by intimate partners, and 4.5 million women have reported being threatened with a gun by an intimate partner.
House Bills 5371–5372 & Senate Bills 678–679 would prohibit abusers convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence offenses from possessing guns for 8 years. Introduced on Oct. 6, 2021.
Gun Violence Prevention Funding
House Bill 5174 provides funding for a gun violence prevention program in Ingham County. Introduced on June 29, 2021.
Safe Storage Package
House Bill 5066 & Senate Bill 550 would require firearms to be properly secured to prevent accidental injury/death when the firearms could be accessible to minors. The bills create criminal penalties for failing to secure a firearm that is obtained by a minor and possessed in public or used in a reckless manner or to inflict injury or death. Introduced on June 17, 2021.
House Bill 5067 & Senate Bill 551 would make exempt from the sales tax firearm safety devices (including locks and safes). Introduced on June 17, 2021.
House Bill 5068 & Senate Bill 552 would make exempt from the use tax firearm safety devices (including locks and safes). Introduced on June 17, 2021.
House Bill 5069 & Senate Bill 553 are companion bills that amend the sentencing guidelines to include the new felony penalty created by HB 5066 and SB 550. Introduced on June 17, 2021.
Universal Background Checks
House Bills 4869–4871 / Senate Bills 454–456 would require universal background checks on all guns. Introduced on May 18, 2021.
Restoring Local Control
Senate Bill 352 would allow local governments to ban guns on property owned or leased by local governments. Introduced on April 13, 2021.
What is perhaps most confounding about this political refusal to act is that Americans — including Republicans — overwhelmingly support things like universal background checks, mental health screening, waiting periods for gun purchases, a ban on sale of high-capacity magazines, as well as a ban on guns and assault-style weapons to anyone under 21.
All that support for some control of guns makes me wonder who the Republicans are serving.
Check out the results of a Morning Consult poll conducted the day after the school slaughter in Uvalde.
Maybe our politicians figure there’s nothing they can do; however, there is something WE can do: Tell our representatives how we feel. If you think there’s no need for new common-sense gun legislation, let state Sen. Lana Theis and state Reps. Ann Bollin and Bob Bezotte know that.
But if you say a prayer before you send your kids to school in the morning, tell our legislators that you expect them to take some common-sense action. Email them; send a letter or postcard in the mail; call their offices, as all calls are logged; check out their Facebook pages. Do one of those things, or do them all. But for safety’s sake, do something.
• State Sen. Lana Theis
SenLTheis@senate.michigan.gov
PO Box 30036
Lansing, MI 48909
(517) 373-2420
On Facebook
• State Rep. Bob Bezotte
RobertBezotte@house.mi.gov
N-896 House Office Building
P.O. Box 30014
Lansing, MI 48909
(517) 373-8835
On Facebook
• State Rep. Ann Bollin
AnnBollin@house.mi.gov
N-891 House Office Building
P.O. Box 30014
Lansing, MI 48909
On Facebook
