The Safe Guns, Safe Kids Act

The past few weeks have been painful for so many people in our community and no one has been left unaffected — whether it’s the Oxford community or the dozens of other school districts across Michigan that are dealing with threats and fear of additional violence.

Over the past two weeks of church services, vigils and funerals, and visits with parents, teachers, and law enforcement in Oxford, one thing is clear: everyone just wants to keep our kids safe. But while an apparent mountain of evidence allows the parents in this case to be charged, there’s actually nothing in Michigan or federal law that holds parents accountable for aiding their child in committing a crime.

After all the conversations I’ve had in the district over the last two weeks, it’s clear to me that we need legislation to help prevent a tragedy like this from happening in another American town. That’s why I’ll be introducing the Safe Guns, Safe Kids Act, a bill to make sure gun owners are safely and securely storing their weapons so that kids or bad actors can’t get ahold of them.

The Safe Guns, Safe Kids Act will:

• Require gun owners to responsibly store their firearms when children are present and holds them responsible when they fail to do so; and
• Hold a gun owner accountable if a minor gets access to their unsecured gun and causes injury or commits a crime with that gun as a result.

I come from a gun-owning family, and I carried a Glock and an M4 on my three tours in Iraq with the CIA. There are millions of responsible gun owners in Michigan, including people I love, like my dad. Responsibility is at the heart of what it means to be American and owning a firearm comes with responsibilities. If you don’t meet those responsibilities, you’re putting lives at risk.

My bill is a serious effort to address a safety issue that is taking American lives. According to research done by Everytown for Gun Safety, there were at least 2,070 unintentional shootings by children, resulting in 765 deaths from 2015 to 2020. Cases of young children taking hold of a gun and mistakenly shooting themselves, a friend, or a family member happen almost every single day. For years, we’ve seen the tragic effects of negligent gun storage all over the country, and unfortunately late last month we saw it firsthand in our district.

In Oxford, we lost four young Michiganders with their whole lives ahead of them late last month. That loss has ripped a hole in our community, and the trauma inflicted on their family, friends and classmates will never go away. No American community should have to experience what Oxford is going through, and that’s why we’ll be working hard to get this bill passed and prevent similar tragedies in the future.

Thank you for reading,

Rep. Elissa Slotkin