Michigan lawmakers poised to push for guns in schools law

FOX 2 News has learned that pro-gun forces in the Michigan legislature will reintroduce the so-called guns in schools legislation that the governor vetoed last year. 

Sponsors are promising to revamp it and the Synder administration is telling FOX2 political correspondent Tim Skubick it is willing to revisit the gun issue.

The governor vetoed the original guns in schools legislation because the proposal did not allow schools, day care centers, hospitals and sports facilities to opt out of the law to ban guns. But a conservative senator promises to reintroduce the measure next week with some changes that he hopes the governor will sign.

Lieutenant Governor Brian Calley says the conversation could be opened again to accommodate the reasons the governor vetoed it in the first place.

The killing of students in that Connecticut school still hangs over this debate, but Senator Mike Green the sponsor says his bill could have saved lives had the principal had a weapon. "The principal who threw herself at the gun guy, that fixed nothing except it killed her. Why not let her stand twenty feet away from him, pull out a gun and shoot the guy? She'd had a better chance and she would have saved a whole lot of kids" Green said.

But Democrat Rebekah Warren grimaced when she was told about Green's theory. She said, "I don't think we want to turn our teachers into armed guards. They are there to teach our kids and the idea that we want to send our school personnel in the schools with guns is very scary to me" Warren said.

Meanwhile a senate committee has voted to exempt guns made in Michigan from any new federal laws to control weapons. Senator Green argues that is the right thing to do, too. "We're a sovereign state and why do we have to do every stinking little thing that the federal government tells us to do?" he said.

Look for a vote on that gun bill soon.