LANSING, Mich. — Before approving an 11-bill package Thursday aimed at combating gun violence, a Michigan Senate committee changed one of the proposals to remove from current state law legal protections for firearm dealers and manufacturers.
Democrats made the liability changes in a bill that previously focused on bolstering gun storage standards in homes where children are present. Republicans immediately criticized the revisions.
The new version of the storage measure would delete about two pages of law that say federally licensed firearm dealers are not liable for damages "arising from the use or misuse" of a gun if the sale was executed legally and that ban local governments in Michigan from suing gun manufacturers.
"... (A) political subdivision shall not bring a civil action against any person who produces a firearm or ammunition," the current law says.
Sen. Stephanie Chang, Democratic chairwoman of the Civil Rights, Judiciary and Public Safety Committee, said senators had realized by approving the firearm storage legislation, they'd be voting on a portion of state law that included the immunity protections.
"We saw it as an opportunity to update our laws," Chang told reporters.
Tom Lambert, legislative director for Michigan Open Carry, said the change “has the potential to shut down every gun store in the state.”
Chang's committee voted Wednesday to advance to the full Senate bills that would require criminal background checks for all gun purchases and would permit "extreme risk" protection orders, also known as a red flag law, to allow guns to be taken away from people deemed a risk to themselves and others.
GOP Sen. Jim Runestad called the liability revision to the storage bill a "poison pill" that would bankrupt gun dealers and manufacturers. And GOP Sen. Ruth Johnson said there hadn't been proper discussion about the change to the proposal before Thursday's committee vote.
"It really, I believe, would allow civil lawsuits and prosecution of law-abiding manufacturers and dealers even if they followed every single law they were supposed to," Johnson said. "It's a huge change to our values that we hold dear in this country."
Michigan lawmakers have been focused on overhauling the state's firearm policies since Feb. 13 when a gunman killed three students and wounded five others on the campus of Michigan State University. Fourteen months earlier, in November 2021, a mass shooting at Oxford High School left four students dead and seven others wounded.
The suspected MSU gunman legally bought a gun but did not register it. He took a plea deal in 2019 that allowed him to plead down from carrying a concealed pistol without a concealed carry permit, a five-year felony, to possession of a loaded firearm in a vehicle, a two-year misdemeanor for which he served 18 months of probation.
Under the misdemeanor charge, McRae could legally own and possess a gun after probation, Ingham County Prosecutor John Dewane said. Critics of additional gun regulations have pointed at the suspected gunman's plea deal to urge better enforcement of existing firearm laws.
A 2005 federal law already provides liability protections for firearms manufacturers.
That federal policy "would still block some victims' lawsuits, but state lawmakers have significant authority to draft this legislation in a manner that empowers victims to make it through the cracks left open in the federal industry immunity law if they so choose," said Ari Freilich, state policy director at the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
The center is named for former Arizona congresswoman and gun violence survivor Gabrielle Giffords, who survived an assassination attempt during a mass shooting in January 2011 near Tucson, Arizona. Six people died in the shooting and Giffords suffered brain damage that forced her to resign from Congress a year later and focus on her recovery. Giffords plans to attend a gun control rally Wednesday at the Capitol.
One exception to the federal protection allows victims of gun violence to sue if they can prove they were harmed by a firearm industry member's knowing violation of a state law regulating the firearm industry, Freilich said.
"In other words, even as Congress generally shielded the firearm industry from many common law tort actions and judicially created doctrines, it specifically preserved state legislatures' central role in enacting statutes governing firearm industry responsibilities and accountability," he added. "What states choose to do with that authority is up to their lawmakers today."
An amended Senate bill eliminates about two pages of state law that say federally licensed firearm dealers are not liable for damages "arising from the use or misuse" of a gun if the sale was executed legally and that ban local governments in Michigan from suing gun manufacturers.
Freilich called on Michigan legislators to replace the current immunity protections with "a firearm industry standard of responsible business conduct that clearly authorizes victims of gun violence to have their day in court if they can prove they were harmed by a firearm industry member's knowing violations of that state law regulating firearm industry commerce."
Chang said a representative of the Michigan Association of Justice, an organization that advocates on behalf of trial lawyers, had noted that voting for the safe storage bill, as originally introduced, would mean continuing the legal protections that had been afforded to gun dealers and manufacturers.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, signed a bill last year to allow individuals, local governments and California Attorney General Rob Bonta to sue "irresponsible manufacturers and sellers of firearms for the harm caused by their products," according to a news release.
Also, in 2022, families of nine victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting agreed to a $73 million settlement of a lawsuit against Remington, the maker of the rifle used in the killings.
The civil court case in Connecticut focused on how the firearm was marketed, with the families contending it targeted younger, at-risk males, according to the Associated Press.
The Michigan gun proposals now go to the full Senate, where they could be voted on as early as next week.
The storage proposal bans individuals from leaving firearms unattended in a home if they reasonably should know a minor is present. The bill requires them to store the firearm in a locked box or lock the firearm.
The Democratic-controlled Michigan House has been considering its own package of similar gun control bills.
Late Wednesday night, the House approved legislation in a 56-53 vote along party lines that would require a criminal background check and registration for any firearm purchase, expanding the requirements currently limited to handgun sales to include rifles and shotguns.
The legislation would extend criminal background checks and firearm registration requirements to rifles and shotguns that are sold outside of federally licensed dealers, such as at gun shows or in private transfers of firearms. The legislation exempts firearms used for hunting if the user is under the age of 21.
House Bill 4138 exempts from background checks any long guns and rifles currently in possession, "grandfathering" those firearms in, and exempts long guns and rifles obtained through a transfer among family members.
The bill shifts the responsibility to perform the background check and register the firearm with police to the seller, except in the case of a private transfer or sale with individuals who are not family members. In that case, the onus to register the gun falls on the recipient.
Passage of the so-called universal background check legislation marks the first gun regulation policy to move through one of the Michigan Legislature's chambers since the deadly MSU shooting.
"This bill would not have prevented this tragedy or any other," said state Rep. Neil Friske, a Republican.
Lansing police have said the suspected MSU gunman legally purchased his two 9mm handguns.
Rep. Jaime Churches, a Democrat and sponsor of the bill, said background checks are a "common sense" reform and a first step in keeping guns away from criminals. The paperwork represents a mere "inconvenience" for law-abiding gun owners, she said.
Churches, a former teacher in Grosse Isle, said she might still be in her classroom if lawmakers had the courage to take steps to address issues like gun violence.
"I do not need research, I do not need statistics to know that, in the wrong hands, guns intimidate, guns kill," she said.
