Michigan Gun Violence Prevention Summit begins ahead of gun reforms going into effect.
[Lt. Gov. Garlin] Gilchrist spoke alongside other gun violence stakeholders, including Maya Manuel, 21, a student advocate at Michigan State University’s campus where a deadly shooting killed three students and injured five others on Feb. 13 [2023].
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer last spring signed several gun safety bills, but they don’t go into effect 90 days after the Legislature adjourned, which makes them effective on Feb. 13 — which happens to be the first anniversary of the MSU shooting.
“This is an opportunity for us to prepare to challenge those who are comfortable with people dying of preventable deaths in the state of Michigan. I am not comfortable with that. Gov. Whitmer is not comfortable with that,” Gilchrist said.… “On the flip side … somebody was."
Honestly? As much as I truly hope these mandated safeguards help to curb gun violence, firearms are so ingrained in American culture —unlike almost any other world —that it’s going to take a seismic cultural shift in attitude to see a magnitude less of disgraces like the almost-daily mass shootings in public places, to avoid horrors like this child who shot himself in the face, unfortunately just another one of the many instances.
Call it low-hanging fruit, say it’s obvious, but it needed to be said, Lt Governor…
“Every single death by a gun in Michigan and America in the world is 100% preventable,” Gilchrist said. “That means that we have the power to stop all of this death in all of our communities — no matter what community you live in. No matter what the shape and spirit of gun violence looks like. No matter whether it is suicide or homicide, they are all preventable.”
I’m not disagreeing that fewer guns leads to significantly fewer deaths. I think any reasonable person would say that makes sense.
However, a large number of unnecessary deaths will occur whether or not guns are present. Implying otherwise is overly reductive. It misses the bigger picture issue of the causes of violence.
Reducing violent crimes/unnecessary deaths should be the objective. Reduction in gun ownership is only a single (albeit significant) tool to reach that goal.
You are once again moving the goalpost. While, yes, “unnecessary deaths*” will occur whether, again, sane gun ownership restrictions are in place or not, that is not the subject at hand.
* Define “unnecessary deaths.” Murder? Crib death? Religious beliefs against modern medicine? Neglect? All of the above? On second thought, please don’t.
How about we frame this discussion around unnecessary deaths by weapons (of any sort, accidental or intentional)? I think we can agree the intention of gun controls is to reduce that number. Therefore, this discussion is fundamentally about unnecessary deaths (as defined above).
I’m not moving the goalpost, I’m consistently stating what the goal ought to be; not less gun ownership, but rather fewer unnecessary deaths. Gun controls are a likely necessary, but insufficient method of reaching that goal.
If you’d like to have a conversation about any Michigan-related subject you’d like, please, by all means, post something. But you can’t come into an established conversation and change the focal point as you wish. It’s a basic social convention.
We’re done.
Good to know you’re only concerned with the guns and not the deaths. It’s never fruitful to pay attention to root causes of problems.