Dems renew push for gun-control bills
Michigan lawmaker: Hold adults accountable
LANSING, Mich. – Democrats vowed to push new gun-control legislation and to try to revive stalled bills in Michigan’s Republican-led Legislature following a mass shooting that left four high school students dead and others with serious injuries.
But GOP leaders, who have long opposed such measures and have favored looser restrictions, did not immediately commit to policy changes.
“We can’t do nothing,” Sen. Rosemary Bayer, a Democrat whose district includes Oxford High School, told reporters Wednesday after senators held a moment of silence for the dead. “We have to take action. Right this minute, today, I think I really, really want to focus on the families and ... just trying to help them know that we’re here for them, that we’re supporting them in any way we can.”
Earlier this year, mass shootings in Georgia and Colorado reignited calls from gun-control advocates for tighter restrictions on buying firearms and ammunition. But with Democrats in control of the federal government, gunrights advocates have been persuading Republican-run legislatures to go the other way, and make it easier to obtain and carry guns.
Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who opposes relaxing restrictions, said gun violence is a public health crisis. She called for unspecified “actions” beyond “thoughts and prayers” but did not elaborate. She has previously backed a measure that would let judges order the seizure of firearms from people who pose a significant risk to themselves or others.
In June, Bayer introduced legislation aimed at holding accountable adults who fail to secure their firearms. The 15year-old charged in Tuesday’s slayings, Ethan Crumbley, illegally had a handgun that his father had bought four days earlier, authorities said.
The bill would require adults to keep a firearm in a securely locked container if they know it is accessible to minors. If a minor obtained the gun and used it to kill or injure, the adult would face up to five years in prison. There would be exceptions if minors have permission for activities like target practice and hunting.
Republicans have not held a hearing on the measure or other gun-control legislation.
“If we get obsessed with eliminating all risks, we will then develop and evolve into a country we won’t recognize because we’ll also have no freedoms,” Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey said. “It’s a balance. It’s a very narrow road. It is hard. These kind of events keep those thoughts in mind.”
He suggested there probably had been warning signs about the shooter, and he questioned how the teen accessed the gun.
“Those kinds of things are already controllable but for maybe just missing the signs,” Shirkey said.
But Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald, whose office charged Crumbley, called for policy changes without specifying further.
“If the incident yesterday with four children being murdered and multiple kids being injured is not enough to revisit our gun laws, I don’t know what is.”