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Senator Mike Green speaks at 2nd Amendment demonstration in Lansing.

U PACKING HEAT? Green Says Trained, Armed Citizens Answer to Deadly Attacks

Criminals Would Be Wary Of Quick Draw Vigilantes, Gun Advocates Say

October 13, 2014       Leave a Comment
By: Dave Rogers

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What are the chances Michigan will have up to 350,000 Wyatt Earps, armed to the teeth, patrolling every school, church, library and other public building by next year?

Pretty good, apparently, if Republican Mike Green is re-elected to the Michigan Senate, the GOP holds control, the House passes his "Guns in School" bill and Gov. Rick Snyder stays in office and caves in to the pro-gun forces.

The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun, according to Green's way of thinking -- and that of many of his "Open Carry/Concealed Carry" pals of like mind.

(Hear Sen. Green explain gun issues at a Second Amendment demonstration last year in Lansing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tedXDFMKqao)

Snyder's veto of Green's Senate Bill 79 last December in the wake of the Connecticut school shooting that took 20 lives was the only thing that foiled the would-be Earps.

His new plan, Senate Bill 789, has passed the Senate 24-13 on party lines and is pending in the House Judiciary Committee. The bill is expected to be considered later this year or in the next session of the legislature.

The state police say implementing Green's bill will cost an estimated $8.4 million per year and require an additional 58 full time state employees, according to an analysis by the senate fiscal agency.

The Mackinac Center explains the legislation: "Passed 24 to 13 in the Senate on June 10, 2014, to eliminate county concealed weapon licensing boards, and transfer the responsibility for administering and issuing concealed pistol licenses to county clerks, with the State Police still performing the background checks required by the law. The bill also lowers the application fee and revises a number of other details in the CPL law, including details of mental health disqualifications."

Rob Harris, media director for Michigan Open Carry Inc., said after the school shooting: "This legislation has to be passed to at least have a fighting chance against the evil in this world."

Green's proposal tweaks the concealed weapons law by allowing gun owners who receive eight additional hours of training to carry their weapons in formerly gun-free areas, such as day care centers, schools, hospitals, churches and stadiums and bars.

Green calls it "repealing criminal empowerment zones." He told a rally last year he carries a gun daily, even into the capitol, commenting: "It's about our own ability to protect ourselves."

There are about 350,000 concealed pistol license holders throughout the state who would be eligible for the additional training, Harris said.

The so-called "Guns in Schools Legislation" the governor vetoed last year has been revamped and the Snyder administration has said it is willing to revisit the issue.

Snyder vetoed the original Guns in Schools Legislation because it didn't allow schools, libraries, day care centers, hospitals and sports facilities to opt out of the law to ban guns.

According to the Michigan Supreme Court, library districts in the state cannot regulate firearms possession on their property, even though state laws prohibiting most local firearms control laws do not explicitly include library districts.

The high court last year failed to act on an appeal by the Capitol District Library in Lansing, thus leaving the door open for guns on its premises.

"The conversation could be opened again to accommodate the reasons the governor vetoed it in the first place," Lt. Governor Brian Calley told a Lansing radio station earlier this year.

Mike Green, the sponsor, says his bill could have saved lives if the female principal in Connecticut had been armed and trained, pulled her gun and took out the intruder who was intent on killing as many of her students as he could.

"The principal, who threw herself at the gun guy, that fixed nothing except it killed her. Why not let her stand 20 feet away from him, pull out a gun and shoot the guy? She'd had a better chance and she would have saved a whole lot of kids," said Senator Green.

Another senator has a very different view:

"I don't think we want to turn our teachers into armed guards. They are there to teach our kids and the idea that we want to send our school personnel in the schools with guns is very scary to me," argues Senator Rebekah Warren, Ann Arbor area Democrat.

Meanwhile, a senate committee has voted to exempt guns made in Michigan from any new federal laws to control weapons.

"We're a sovereign state and why do we have to do every stinking little thing that the federal government tells us to do?" questions Senator Green.

The Yale Law Journal states: "In over eighty percent of states, the right to either concealed or open carry is available to most people in most places. Most of these states have chosen to protect the right to concealed carry while only some have done the same for open carry."

Legal scholar Jonathon Meltzer states: "(1) the Second Amendment guarantees a right to carry outside the home, and (2) it guarantees only a right to carry openly."

Tim Skubick, columnist and prominent commentator from the PBS program "Off the Record," predicts the argument over whether expanded gun rights will cause a "Wild West" environment will go on and on.

"The anti-gun crowd says if there's a gun in some place, eventually someone's going to use it and somebody's going to get hurt," said Skubick. "This is a long debate over the second amendment that we will continue to have in our blessed country until we go under," he concluded.

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Dave Rogers

Dave Rogers is a former editorial writer for the Bay City Times and a widely read,
respected journalist/writer in and around Bay City.
(Contact Dave Via Email at carraroe@aol.com)

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