MICHIGAN COALITION FOR
RESPONSIBLE GUN OWNERS

"Promoting safe use and ownership of firearms
through education, litigation, and legislation."

MONDAY E'NEWS

Four new packages of gun control laws take effect on Tuesday, February 13, 2024. MCRGO will summarize all four packages in the coming weeks in easy to understand bullet points along with links to detailed official legislative analyses.


Any of these laws may be litigated in the near future. MCRGO will provide updates on litigation only after a case has been filed. Pending litigation, MCRGO is not able to answer legal questions about these new laws -particularly about hypothetical situations.


Monday, January 15, 2024 E'News: Storage Mandates Summary

Monday, January 22, 2024 E'News: Red Flag Summary

Monday, January 29, 2024 E'News: Long Gun Transfers Summary

Monday, February 5, 2024 E'News: Domestic Violence Summary

Monday, February 12, 2024: The Winter 2024 On Target will contain all four summaries.

New Gun Laws: Red Flag

Michigan's Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO) Act, commonly called "Red Flag" will:


  • Allow specified individuals, such as a spouse or family member, to file an action with a circuit court requesting the court to enter an ERPO for an individual.


  • Require an action to state facts that showed that the issuance of an ERPO was necessary because the respondent posed a significant risk of personal injury to the respondent or others by possessing a firearm.


  • Require the petitioner to provide specified information in a filed action, such as the knowledge that the respondent owned or possessed firearms.


  • Require the court in which the action was filed to expedite a hearing on the issuance of an ERPO.


  • Require the court to issue an ERPO if it determined that the respondent posed a significant risk of personal injury to the respondent or others by possessing a firearm and require the court to consider specified information in that determination, such as a respondent's previous convictions.


  • Specify timelines for a hearing on an ERPO, its issuance, and its service on a restrained individual.


  • Require an ERPO to include specified provisions, such as a provision specifying that the restrained individual could not purchase or possess a firearm.


  • Prescribe the actions a restrained individual could take in response to an ERPO.


  • Prescribe the process for serving an ERPO on a restrained individual.


  • Specify the process that a designated law enforcement agency would have to follow when seizing and returning a firearm under an ERPO.


  • Prescribe penalties for failing to comply with an ERPO and for knowingly and intentionally making a false statement to the court in a complaint.


  • Require the State Court Administrative Office to prepare an annual report on and relating to the application of the Act.


  • Prohibit an individual who was subject to an ERPO from qualifying for a pistol license. --


  • Prohibit an individual who was subject to an ERPO from qualifying for a concealed pistol license (CPL).


The detailed official legislative analysis of this bill package can be found HERE.

"The Gun Is Civilization"

Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force.

If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force.


Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that's it.


In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion.

Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.


When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force.


The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gang banger, and a single guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.


There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations. These are the people who think that we'd be more civilized if all guns were removed from society, because a firearm makes it easier for a [armed] mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true if the mugger's potential victims are mostly disarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat -it has no validity when most of a mugger's potential marks are armed.


People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that's the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force monopoly.


Then there's the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser.


People who think that fists, bats, sticks, or stones don't constitute lethal force watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst. The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is level.


The gun is the only weapon that's as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weight lifter. It simply wouldn't work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn't both lethal and easily employable.


When I carry a gun, I don't do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I'm looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don't carry it because I'm afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn't limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force. It removes force from the equation... and that's why carrying a gun is a civilized act.


By Marko Kloos, Author (often falsely attributed on the internet to a mythical Maj. L. Caudill USMC)


Republished in the MCRGO E'News at member request.

UPCOMING EVENTS


Outdoorama

Thursday-Sunday, February 22-25, 2024, Hours Vary by Day

Suburban Collection Showplace; 46100 Grand River Ave.; Novi, MI 48374

MCRGO's Booth Number is 5415.


Ultimate Sports Show

Thursday-Sunday, March 7-10, 2024, Hours Vary by Day

DeVos Place; 303 Monroe Ave. NW; Grand Rapids, MI 49503

MCRGO's Booth Number is 2067.