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Michigan Department of Education Calls for Common Sense Gun Legislation

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State Superintendent Dr. Michael Rice called on the state legislature to quickly pass commonsense gun laws after another school shooting in Michigan that took young lives.

“The state legislature needs to do what should’ve been done years ago—pass meaningful gun legislation,” Dr. Rice said at Tuesday’s State Board of Education meeting on the heels of deadly mass shootings on the campus of Michigan State University the night before and at Oxford High School 15 months earlier.

In discussing the tragic murders of innocent students, Dr. Rice referenced a resolution that the State Board of Education adopted in October 2022 that called on the state legislature to pass safer gun laws to make students and staff safer in Michigan schools. A statewide poll conducted by EPIC-MRA in fall 2022 found that there is substantial agreement among Michiganders, including Republicans, Democrats, Independents, members of the NRA, and concealed weapons license holders, on the following commonsense gun safety initiatives:

  • Requiring background checks on all gun sales, including sales at gun shows and other private sales.
  • Enacting a child access prevention law that would hold gun owners accountable for the safe storage of firearms.
  • Preventing sales of all firearms to people who have been reported to law enforcement as dangerous to themselves or others.
  • Requiring a waiting period of at least 3 days after a gun purchase before the gun can be taken home.
  • Imposing criminal penalties or fines for those who buy firearms for another person.
  • Requiring a person to be age 21 instead of 18 to be able to purchase an assault-style weapon.
  • Establishing a court-issued protection order called an “extreme risk protection order.”

“We’ve lost too many young lives to gun violence,” Dr. Rice said. “There are guns in the wrong hands. It’s well past time for commonsense gun safety laws.”

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