LANSING, Mich. (Feb. 24, 2023) — Sen. Rosemary Bayer (D-West Bloomfield) issued the following statement on her meeting with White House officials and state legislators from around the country on Wednesday to discuss gun violence prevention: “Wednesday, I had the honor of being invited by the White House to participate in a discussion and provide updates on the status of the policy work that myself and other members of the Michigan Senate and House of Representatives are undertaking to implement common-sense gun violence reduction bills, including those we introduced here in Michigan last week. I was joined by legislative leaders from Michigan and around the country and we discussed how we may best protect our constituents from gun violence today, and in the future.
“It was very beneficial to hear directly from legislators in states like Florida, Colorado and Illinois where they already have legislation similar to bills we recently introduced. As my colleagues and I continue to work to address this issue throughout our terms, Michiganders will benefit knowing that we are learning from and leveraging experience from our nation’s capital and other states.”
BACKGROUND:
Sen. Bayer had her own deadly gun violence experience when she was in eighth grade, and in 2021, a mass shooting at the high school in her hometown of Oxford, Michigan, killed four people and injured seven others.
Sen. Bayer is the cochair of the bicameral Firearm Safety and Violence Prevention Caucus and has been the Senate’s lead on gun violence prevention legislation. With the deadly shooting at Michigan State University on Feb. 13, Sen. Bayer and her legislative colleagues worked quickly to introduce legislation to tackle gun violence and help prevent these tragedies from happening. The 11-bill package that will be introduced in both the House and Senate will require safe storage of firearms, background checks for all firearms—not just handguns, and establish Extreme Risk Protective Orders that will allow a court to take temporary possession of a firearm if the court finds that an individual is at risk of harming themselves or others.
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