LANSING, Mich. (WZMQ) – Lawmakers in Lansing worked through a long agenda during the last few weeks of session. The Capitol was filled with protestors, advocates, and groups like End Gun Violence Michigan, calling for action on groups of bills that ended up passing in both the state House and Senate to create more firearm safety measures.
The first is an education bill that enables schools to send home information sheets about Michigan’s safe storage law.
The second set of legislation will put current Michigan State Police practices into law. In the past, MSP used a third party to destroy the nearly 11,000 surrendered guns they receive each year. After discovering they weren’t being completely destroyed, MSP created a rule that made it mandatory to completely destroy any surrendered firearm.
The last set creates a funding source for community gun violence intervention programs. Groups that were created to find the solutions that work best for their area will get funding to support employees. A leader with End Gun Violence the Very Reverand Chris Yaw said he’s most excited about the last pierce, which will make sure communities can do what they know works best to prevent gun violence in their own communities.
“Our legislature listened, has not let these bills that have been languishing under previous leadership a go unheard and they pick them up and they said the people wanna do something, they’re getting sick and tired and they did something,” Yaw said. “I think we walk hand in hand with our friends who are hunters and who work in law enforcement and who are conscientious firearm owners in wanting to see those who don’t want weapons, don’t want to take care of, don’t want the burden or the responsibility, do not have them.”
Yaw referenced information from The University of Michigan’s Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention. The data shows that in the 90s there were about 200 million firearms in the U.S. Now there are around 400 million. If the trend continues, in the next 10 to 15 years there will be over half a million firearms in the U.S.
“A third of these are weapons that were handed down when somebody died who was a firearm owner, to somebody who doesn’t even know how to take care of it,” Yaw said “We see more death by firearm in the United States by far. A country that makes up 5% of the world’s population has 42% of the weapons, and thus a great percentage of violence and death as a result of those things. We want to see something done.”
All of the bills now wait for a signature from Governor Whitmer before they can become law.
