Michigan passes 3 gun safety laws, and lawmakers say they're not done yet: 'We don't have to live like this'
- The Michigan governor has signed multiple gun safety laws this month, including more background checks.
- Gretchen Whitmer is expected to also sign a "red flag" law, allowing judges to confiscate guns from people they deem dangerous.
Michigan lawmakers have passed three gun safety laws this month, and they say they're not stopping there.
Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed two bills — one requiring safe storage of firearms and another extending background checks to rifles and shotguns — into law and is expected to soon sign a third so-called "red flag" bill.
"Gun violence is a scourge that is unique to this country, and that is why we are taking action," Whitmer said on April 13, when she signed the first two bills, according to Bridge Michigan, a local nonprofit news outlet. "We don't have to live like this."
The new safe storage law requires gun owners with minors in the home to secure firearms, either keeping guns in locked containers or unloaded with a trigger lock. The new background check law requires checks for all firearms purchased in Michigan and strengthens penalties for illegal sales. Previously, the state only required such background checks when purchasing pistols.
The governor is expected to sign a third piece of legislation — known as a red flag law — that would allow authorities to remove firearms from anyone a court deems a danger to themselves or others.
The bills passed their respective legislative bodies mostly along party lines. Republicans argued that the new laws would be detrimental to lawful gun owners, the outlet reported. But Democrats now control both the House of Representatives and the governor's office.
Next on their gun safety agenda, Michigan state Democratic lawmakers say they hope to keep domestic abusers from getting their hands on firearms, ban the sale of large-capacity magazines, and force gun manufacturers to be liable for gun deaths, the Bridge Michigan reported.