“If the incident yesterday with four children being murdered and multiple kids being injured is not enough to revisit our gun laws," Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald said Wednesday, "I don’t know what is." Even as detectives investigate how the Oxford shooter acquired a handgun he was not authorized to own, a bill that would make failing to secure a weapon beyond the reach of minors a $500 misdemeanor is languishing in Lansing for want of GOP support. But the tragedy in Oxford does underline how reluctant Michigan legislators have been to demand that gun owners exercise even minimal caution. There's no evidence that implementing any of these proposals, or all of them together, would have prevented this week's massacre.
While they're at it, lawmakers should increase and redeploy funding for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which relies on just 770 investigators to oversee more than 77,000 licensed gun dealers and manufacturers and 9,500 businesses licensed to sell explosives. The CDC is investing in 18 separate initiatives to prevent gun violence and death, and it has begun tracking the number of people who come into the nation's emergency rooms with gunshot wounds arising from assaults, suicide attempts and accidents- something it hadn't done before.Ĭongress should supplement the paltry $25 million currently allocated for this important research. The agency's public health writ is far-reaching, and the number of gun deaths in this country has long commanded its attention. If you're inclined to scoff at the notion of studying gun violence, consider that the CDC also studies obesity, fatalities among firefighters, school health, fatal injuries to youth in agricultural settings, smoking, and social behavior that contributes to the spread of viruses like COVID-19. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was forbidden to study the causes of gun violence for nearly a quarter century after 1994, when Congress adopted the Dickey Amendment - named after the lawmaker who called himself "the NRA's point man in Washington."īut in 2018, former President Trump signed legislation that allowed the agency to resume limited research, and the CDC's current director, Rochelle Walensky, has expanded the agency's efforts. There's also work for our federal government. Although buy-backs have had mixed results in reducing gun violence, it's an idea worth exploring.
Legislation proposed by GOP lawmakers would exempt some firearms owners from complying with gun-free zones, abolish the state's pistol registry, reduce the fee for a concealed-carry permit, and exempt gun stores from shutdown orders imposed pursuant to a public health emergency like the COVID-19 pandemic.Īt the local level, Detroit Police Commissioner Linda Bernard has proposed a gun buy-back similar to initiatives that have taken thousands of guns out of circulation in Seattle, Baltimore and Philadelphia. The same partisan gridlock that has left all those initiatives stalled in committee has stranded Republican efforts to weaken Michigan's existing gun laws. A bill with bipartisan support would keep weapons out of the hands of domestic abusers. Poll after poll confirms Michiganders' support for prohibiting guns in schools, daycare centers and churches, enacting red flag laws that would keep guns out of the hands of people who pose an imminent threat to themselves or others, and other precautions ensure the safe storage and handling of firearms. And Democratic lawmakers in the GOP-controlled state Legislature have tried to deliver, proposing laws that would require universal background checks, make gun owners criminally liable for failing to secure weapons where children cannot find them them, ban weapons from state-owned public buildings, and increase funding for violence prevention programs. Michigan's figures roughly track national averages. There have been 29 gun-related injuries or deaths on American school grounds this year, Education Week reports. More than half of youthful gun deaths are homicides. Guns are the second-leading cause of death among children and teens 89 die on average each year. More than 1,200 people die and more than 3,500 are wounded by handguns each year in Michigan, according to the gun reform advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety, Most of the fatalities are suicides. Public policy solutions should recognize all three. Gun violence has three prongs: High profile massacres like the devastating attack in Oxford, which are thankfully rare shootings associated with crime and gang activity and suicide.