Michigan state senator: Ghost gun ban could have prevented American Revolution

Craig Mauger, The Detroit News on Jun 25, 2025

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LANSING, Mich. — The Michigan Senate supported an array of new gun restrictions Wednesday, approving measures to prohibit bump stocks and firearms without serial numbers and to ban the weapons from being carried inside the state Capitol.

Democrats who currently hold a majority of the seats in the Senate contended the bills were common sense and designed to promote pubic safety. But Republican lawmakers argued that the measures infringed on the constitutional right to bear arms and described them as "anti-American."

In a speech on the Senate floor, Sen. Jonathan Lindsey said, "our nation most likely would not exist" if a proposal to bar the sale or manufacturing of guns without serial numbers — known as ghost guns — had been law when the country was founded.

The firearms the founders of the U.S. used to hunt and to "fight back against the tyranny of the British government" were ghost guns, Lindsey said.

"If this law existed at the moment of our founding, America itself would not exist," said Lindsey, R-Coldwater.

However, Sen. Mallory McMorrow, D-Royal Oak, the sponsor of the bill, said ghost guns evade accountability and can't be traced once they're used in a crime.

"I would also like to make an observation that at the founding of country, AR-15s also didn't exist," McMorrow said in her own speech on the Senate floor Wednesday.

AR-15s are semi-automatic rifles, and the "AR" stands for Armalite rifle, referencing the company that developed the firearms in the 1950s, according to the Firearm Industry Trade Association. The organization Everytown for Gun Safety, which supports restrictions on firearms, described AR-15 style weapons as "the weapon of choice for mass shooters."

Meanwhile, muskets were the most common type of weapon used during the American Revolution, and Americans stole many of their weapons from British forces, according to the website AmericanRevolution.org.

Firearms that were made prior to the national Gun Control Act of 1968 weren't required to feature serial numbers, according to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

In addition to the ghost gun ban, which passed in a party-line vote of 19-17, the Michigan Senate also voted on Wednesday 22-14 to ban bump stocks, devices that are designed to make the technique of bump firing easier to achieve, using the strength of a weapon's recoil to rapidly move the trigger.

On Oct. 1, 2017, a gunman in Las Vegas used semi-automatic rifles, with bump stock devices, to launch a barrage of shots that killed 58 people and wounded more than 850 others among 22,000 concertgoers attending an outdoor music festival. The gunman was able to fire off more than 1,000 bullets in 11 minutes from a 32nd-floor suite in the Mandalay Bay hotel.

Republican Sens. Thomas Albert of Lowell, Mark Huizenga of Walker and Mike Webber of Rochester Hills joined Democrats in support of of the bump stock ban.

In party-line votes of 19-17, the Senate approved another two-bill package to generally ban guns in the Michigan Capitol and the House and Senate office buildings. The prohibition wouldn't apply to lawmakers with concealed pistol licenses.

In 2023, the Michigan Capitol Commission voted to ban weapons inside the state Capitol. And the entrance to the building now features a weapon detection system manned by Michigan State Police troopers.

Sen. Dayna Polehanki, D-Livonia, has called for putting the commission's policy into state law, noting that thousands of students visit the Capitol for field trips each year.

"We want to keep Michiganders safe," Polehanki told reporters on Wednesday. "Nobody needs a bump stock, which turns a regular gun into a machine gun. Nobody needs a gun in the Capitol. We have children coming through here every year by the thousands. These are common sense bills."

The Senate approved similar measures last term but they didn't make it through the House, which was, at the time, controlled by Democrats. Now, the House is led by Republicans and it seems unlikely the firearm restrictions will advance.

Sen. Joe Bellino, R-Monroe, was among the Republicans who argued against the bills in the Senate Wednesday. He said the Second Amendment was under "constant attack."

"Criminals intent on doing harm, they don't really care about the law," Bellino said.

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