Michigan Gun Violence Task Force urges higher age limits and assault weapon ban in final report

After releasing several recommendations in April, the Michigan Gun Violence Task Force issued its final report on Monday identifying a number of areas where the state could bolster its current regulations of firearms along with multiple recommendations to help prevent firearm deaths in the state. 

Following the mass shooting at Michigan State University in 2023, state lawmakers advanced a number of gun safety policies, including requiring universal background checks of firearms sales, instituting safe storage requirements, and permitting judges to issue extreme risk protection orders to confiscate firearms from individuals at risk of harming themself or others, a policy sometimes referred to as a red flag law.

Months after these laws took effect in 2024, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer issued an executive order creating the task force, charging its members with improving how those laws are implemented alongside maximizing resources and strengthening coordination across government sectors to reduce gun violence and save lives.

Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian, the state’s chief medical executive and the task force’s chair, explained that the group utilized a public health approach to addressing gun violence in the state. 

Moms and students continue push for policies to address gun violence in Michigan

“There are a lot of issues here that have not historically been thought of as public health issues, and only when we’ve taken this really comprehensive public health approach have we been able to implement real change,” Bagdasarian said. “Gun violence is one of those issues.”

While people often view gun violence as a political issue, a legal issue, or a constitutional issue, it is also a health issue, Bagdasarian explained, noting that gun violence is the leading cause of death among children and teens. 

She pointed to car accidents, which were previously the leading cause of death in children, as another example.

“They are no longer the leading cause of death. They have been declining year upon year, decade upon decade, and it took this whole of government, really comprehensive public health approach to do this,” Bagdasarian said. “There was no single law, there was no single change, but it was years of incremental change.” 

This is what the task force is looking to do for gun violence, she said. 

The report offers several recommendations which can be addressed directly by government agencies, legislative action, through changing government policy, collecting data, supplying funding, or raising awareness. 

It also offers recommendations on reducing the rates of firearm injury and death in specific instances, including suicide, community violence, school safety and firearm related intimate partner violence. 

On top of the state’s existing policies, the task force also recommended requiring waiting periods for firearm purchases, increasing the age requirement for purchasing a firearm to 21, banning large capacity magazines as well as the sale, purchase and possession of assault weapons and ensuring the gun industry can face legal accountability.

To address gun violence in schools, the report calls on lawmakers to strengthen school safety legislation to protect students and ensure struggling students have access to the help they need. It also recommends standardizing training for school safety officers, promoting a statewide school safety tip line and supporting community violence intervention initiatives aimed at addressing the root causes of violence.

Several of the task force’s recommendations aligned with policies already introduced in the Legislature, including requiring licensing and inspections for gun dealers, barring weapons from government buildings, banning devices to convert semiautomatic weapons into fully automatic weapons and banning ghost guns – firearms without a serial number that are assembled from kits or 3D-printed parts. 

To improve the effectiveness of the state’s red flag laws, the task force called for clear guidelines for firearm relinquishment. It also encouraged officials to remove barriers to filing extreme risk protection orders and personal protection orders and improve enforcement. They also called on leaders to strengthen victim support services to address the harms of domestic violence.

The task force also recommended more public education on the state’s secure storage laws and expanded access to gun locks. 

When assembling the task force and its various issue-based subcommittees, Bagdasarian said it was really important to the group and the governor’s team that all the right voices were at the table. 

The task force brought in folks with backgrounds in suicide prevention, community violence intervention, individuals with backgrounds in school safety, members of law enforcement, members of the Department of Education, hunters, gun owners and firearm safety experts, she explained. 

“It was multiple departments across the state, but also people who represented the voices of communities – of urban communities and rural communities – and different personal backgrounds,” Bagdasarian said.  “Because at the end of the day, I think we all have a common goal, and that is to keep our community safe, to keep our families safe and to keep our children safe.”