Tagged: gun rights

LANSING, Mich. (AP) - About 200 people have turned out at the Michigan Capitol for a rally in favor of putting more restrictions on gun ownership.

They shared the grounds Saturday with dozens of other people who are opposed to new restrictions.

Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero told the crowd that "sensible gun laws," not more guns, will make communities safer. The rally included the five Michigan chapters of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. Survivors of gun violence also attended.

Pretty much everyone remembers George Santayana’s famous saying that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t talking about the Republicans in Michigan’s state senate, but he could have been.

Real life is different from fiction. In the real world, things happen that are just too crazy for anyone to make up. And if there’s any political question that we can say has been settled for all time, it is that federal law always trumps state law. When they conflict, federal law is the law.

A debate about guns is brewing in the City of Grand Rapids.

At Grand Rapids City Hall Tuesday night, several people had pistols holstered at their hips for a commission meeting.

They’re part of Michigan Open Carry, a group that’s pressuring commissioners to change a local law. It bans loaded firearms here, or any public place in Grand Rapids.

Mayor George Heartwell says he has a “very healthy respect for guns” but he doesn’t think they belong at city hall.

A state court has struck down a Lansing library’s ban on people openly carrying guns in its branches.

The Capitol Area District Library instituted its policy banning patrons from openly carrying firearms in 2005.

A group called Michigan Open Carry challenged the ban, claiming the ban violated a state law which blocks local units of government from instituting rules that restrict gun owners.     And a majority of the Michigan Court of Appeals agreed.

From the conclusion of the opinion released by the Court of Appeals: