The Michigan Senate has sent Governor Gretchen Whitmer the main bill in a package to create extreme risk protection orders. That would allow authorities to temporarily seize guns from people deemed by a court to pose a threat to themselves or others.
The legislation gained momentum following mass shootings at Oxford High School and Michigan State University. And Democratic Senator Mallory McMorrow says she believes extreme risk orders will help avert future tragedies. But she also expects they will be rarely used.
"A lot of people who are worried about it are going to see that it does have a very narrow use case and that it's not used or abused as frequently as they think."
The legislation also makes it a crime to seek an emergency risk order under false pretenses. The governor signed laws last week to require guns to be stored where they can't be accessed by children and to require universal background checks for gun purchases.
