A look at gun laws set to take effect in Michigan in 2024
(CBS DETROIT) - New laws will be taking effect in the first few months of 2024, including a set of laws that aim to increase gun safety in Michigan.
There are four significant gun laws that will be implemented in 2024 that will require things like safe storage, universal background checks, creating Extreme Risk Protection Orders also called "Red flag laws," and a gun ban for those convicted of domestic violence.
The laws are changes that advocates and Democrats in the Legislature have been pushing for, for years.
"Taken together, these laws represent a sea change in Michigan's gun safety regime," said Ryan Bates, the executive director of End Gun Violence Michigan. "We've gone from being a laggard having not passed a gun safety law in 40 years to being a national leader."
Bates tells CBS News Detroit that Michigan's red flag law includes requirements for a legal process before a firearm is removed, plus an appeals process. He said he's particularly pleased to see the safe storage law officially passed.
"In states where they've implemented a strong, safe storage law, youth firearm deaths went down 50%," he said. "So that that one intervention can have a huge impact on the lives of our children."
But Rick Ector, a firearm trainer in Detroit, said he has concerns about each of the new laws.
"All of them stand out to me in a negative fashion," Ector said. "I feel that they are against the natural, inherent, God-given rights that we have as, as citizens of this country."
Michigan's gun ban for convicted domestic abusers would prevent someone from owning a gun for up to eight years after a misdemeanor conviction. Ector said he feels Michigan doesn't need universal background checks.
"Well, it's already on the books that if you're going to purchase a firearm from an FFL, the Federal Firearms licensee, that a background check, be performed. It really begs the question, do we really believe that people who are statutorily ineligible to own and possess a firearm, that they're going to subject themselves to a background check?"
This set of laws will go into effect in February 2024.
