I just sent the following email to the NRA-ILA regarding Proposal 2; I have sent similar letters to a number of legislators in Lansing:
All of you folks from Michigan need to call, write, email, and fax the legislators from your district about this. While the State AG's opinion was intended only to address Proposal 2, his interpretation of the relationship between Constitutional protections and limits created by legislation is directly applicable to the issue of firearm carry. It is time to really turn up the heat to have Constitutional Carry implemented in Michigan.
As your representatives in Michigan have no doubt heard, there is a proposal on the November state ballot that has drawn the attention of the State AG.
Proposal 2 would amend the state constitution to make collective bargaining a constitutional right for public employees. The State AG has gone on the record to say that passage of this proposal will either partially or fully invalidate 170 laws that govern collective bargaining for public employees, because the state constitution take precedence over limits imposed through legislation.
With that in mind, I have contacted several Michigan state legislators regarding the many gun control laws we have on the books in Michigan. If it is true that passage of this proposal making collective bargaining a constitutional right will invalidate legislation, then it is also true that the unqualified statement in the Michigan State Constitution in Article 1 Section 6, "Every person has a right to keep and bear arms for the defense of himself and the state," invalidates legislative limitations on that right. In fact, given the AG's stated opinion, these laws were invalid from the outset, because the constitution supersedes the limitations imposed by legislators.
As I observed to our legislators, they can't have it both ways.
They cannot, on one hand, argue that the constitutional right to collective bargaining invalidates legislation, while on the other hand continuing to hold that similar legislative limits on the right to bear arms for one's own self-defense are unaffected. Rep. Mike LeBlanc observed in his response to my email, "I never thought of it that way, though I have always advocated for an ultimate right to possess, own and carry unless convicted of a felony."
The NRA-ILA needs to be all over this one.
Many of us have been working toward Constitutional Carry in Michigan; the AG's stated opinion regarding Proposal 2 (even though Proposal 2 is completely unrelated to firearm carry) just blew the doors to that issue wide open.
All of you folks from Michigan need to call, write, email, and fax the legislators from your district about this. While the State AG's opinion was intended only to address Proposal 2, his interpretation of the relationship between Constitutional protections and limits created by legislation is directly applicable to the issue of firearm carry. It is time to really turn up the heat to have Constitutional Carry implemented in Michigan.