Thoughts and prayers didn’t save lives in Michigan, but a slate of gun safety measures that became law after the state suffered two mass shootings will continue to reduce gun violence, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer told a crowd of gun violence prevention advocates and survivors at a rally at the Capitol in Lansing.
The pain of the 2021 shooting at Oxford High School, where four students were killed, and the 2023 shooting at Michigan State University, where three students were killed, will not soon be forgotten, Whitmer said, especially as other states and schools continue to experience the same tragic sting.
After taking a moment of silence for the individuals wounded and killed last week in a shooting at Florida State University, Whitmer thanked the advocates present, some of whom are survivors of Oxford and MSU, for being the driving force behind Michigan implementing sweeping gun safety reforms that went into action in February of last year.
Rebekah Schuler (right) a survivor of the Oxford High School shooting in 2021 listens to speakers at a gun safety rally at the state Capitol Building on April 22, 2025 | Photo: Anna Liz Nichols
Those measures included requirements to lock up unattended firearms when a minor could reasonably access it, the implementation of universal background checks for all gun sales in Michigan, extending temporary bans on firearm possession for those convicted of domestic violence offenses and creating “red flag” laws to allow judges to issue extreme risk protection orders, or ERPOs, to temporarily remove firearms from the possession of individuals who pose a threat to themselves or others.
“This movement was powered by people, by students, by those of us who are fed up and tired of watching gun violence ravage our communities and our homes and our school districts and our neighborhoods. We owe it to victims, survivors, parents, teachers and students to end this epidemic,” Whitmer said.
Former Oxford High School student Madeline Johnson holds a sign at a gun safet rally at the Michigan Capitol Building on April 22, 2025 in honor of her friend Madisyn Baldwin, who was killed in the Oxford High School shooting in 2021. | Photo: Anna Liz Nichols
In the first year of implementation, Michigan’s red flag laws led to nearly 300 requests for gun confiscations being granted, the State Court Administrative Office reported in February. At least 31 individuals who had an ERPO issued against them were charged with criminal offenses within 30 days of the entry for the ERPO, with the most common offense they were charged with being domestic violence.
Researchers have long called attention to the lethal combination access to firearms and domestic violence make, with several medical experts and researchers asserting that domestic violence victims are five times more likely to be killed by their abuser if there is a gun accessible to them.
And as many domestic violence service providers in Michigan have witnessed intimate partner violence become more violent and more lethal since the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a particular focus at a recent rally on the impact of gun violence in domestic violence.
A survivor of domestic violence, Faith Brown, said she gathered up the courage to leave her husband who had been abusing her and her four children and served him with divorce papers and was looking forward to getting her life back. But on Sept. 21, 2016 she came home to find her husband waiting for her with a gun.
He killed Brown’s four children, Chadney, 19; Kara, 17; Koi, 5, and Kaleigh, 4 and then shot her, leaving her for dead.
Faith Brown, a domestic violence survivor, speaks at a gun safety rally at the state Capitol Building on April 22, 2025 | Photo: Anna Liz Nichols
Eight years later and Brown is now an advocate for other women who have experienced intimate partner violence, which so often involves gun violence, crediting First Step Domestic & Sexual Violence Services in Wayne County for providing counseling and support as she fought to continue with her life.
“At some point, I decided that I needed to live again. It was what my children would have wanted,” Brown said. “Nothing can bring back my children, but I can do everything in my power to make sure no other woman, no other family, has to go through what I did, no one else should have to lose what I lost.”
As the Michigan Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, established through an executive order by Whitmer, released recommendations to decrease firearm-related deaths and injuries, Whitmer told the crowd she looks forward to reviewing the policies and pursuing elected leaders and advocates in implementing more gun safety policies in Michigan.
“Every shooting, every life lost, every community grieving demands not just our attention and thoughts and prayers, but our action,” Whitmer said. “I’m ready to work with you and anyone who wants to protect public safety, reduce gun violence, because this is about partnership, not partisanship.”
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