Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer outlined her three-pronged approach to gun reform in what was her fifth State of the State address on Wednesday, saying “The time for only thoughts and prayers are over.”
Addressing the full Legislature in the House chamber, Whitmer called for enacting universal background checks, safe gun storage laws, and extreme risk protection orders, better known as red flag laws, “so we can keep guns out of the hands of those who might represent a danger to themselves or others.”
Whitmer touted her recent initiative, “Operation Safe Neighborhoods,” which she said has taken “hundreds of illegal firearms off the street before they could be used in the commission of a crime.”
“But we must do more so the world that our kids inherit is not more violent than the one we inhabit now,” she explained.
She went on to highlight the impetus for the gun reforms she proposed—the Nov. 2021 school shooting at Oxford High School in southeastern Michigan, which claimed the lives of four students and injured seven, and the multiple instances of gun violence across the country that has happened since.
In the Oxford High School shooting’s aftermath, Republican lawmakers blocked all proposed gun reform-related legislation, including one to require safe gun storage, the Detroit Free Press reported.
“Despite pleas from Oxford families, these issues never even got a hearing in the last legislature,” Whitmer said.
