Rep. Elissa Slotkin continues push for gun safety reform in her campaign for Senate

WASHINGTON (Gray DC) - Representative Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) is making gun safety reform a key priority in her 2024 campaign for Senate.

“The ground is shifting on this issue. And Americans of all stripes, including and especially gun owners, hunters, sportsmen, are demanding basic gun safety measures,” said Congresswoman Slotkin at a press conference in March when she unveiled several gun safety bills.

Slotkin said that gun violence is hitting very close to home for many Americans including for people across her district, where there were two school shootings in sixteen months - one at Oxford High School in 2021 and another at Michigan State University in February.

“I’m the first congresswoman in America to have to school shootings in her district in six months. So it wasn’t that I woke up one morning and said, let’s make this an issue. It’s the number one killer of children under 21. And it came home in just a very real and very raw way,” said Slotkin.

Slotkin is a moderate Democrat who supports the second amendment and grew up with guns. But the former CIA officer and Pentagon official says preventing gun violence is now a matter of homeland security. In the last few months, she has introduced multiple pieces of gun safety legislation including:

-Legislation to fund CDC research on gun violence prevention at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

-Another bill requiring parents to secure guns so children cannot access them

-A third aimed at preventing the transfer of firearms to people convicted of gun misdemeanors for three years

-A bill that would require a one week waiting period before a person can buy a firearm

Slotkin says her work on gun violence issues would continue if elected to the Senate.

“This is an increasing issue, a top voters minds, just because of the spate of gun violence where it feels like every week or even multiple times a week, there are some tragedy at a school or elsewhere,” said Jessica Taylor, The Cook Political Report Senate and Governors Editor.

Taylor said it is too early to tell if gun safety reform will be a key issue in many 2024 races but says more voters are supporting bipartisan gun safety reforms.

“I have seen polling in Michigan that shows that overwhelmingly they do want more bipartisan measures,” she said. “And I think that can include, again, things like stricter background checks and different things, red flag laws. And this is a place where the public is ahead of where politicians are largely.”

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