Photo Credit: Still taken from Fox 2 Detroit coverage of the event
By: Brenden Boudreau
Well, that probably didn’t go as she planned.
On Tuesday night, U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) of the 11th Congressional District held a gun control town hall at a gun range in Commerce Township, Michigan.
Besides making a poor decision on the venue for the event where pro-gun constituents were all but certain to show up, Congresswoman Stevens came unhinged and shouted down her pro-gun constituents who dared to oppose her calls for radical gun control measures, such as universal gun registration.
Stevens is a freshman legislator, having flipped a seat previously held by a Republican and that President Trump won by nearly five percentage points.
Earlier this year, Stevens voted for H.R. 8, which would effectively outlaw the private sale of firearms nationwide and create a de facto universal gun registration system that would put gun owners into a national database that the anti-gun bureaucrats will then use to track each and every law-abiding gun owner in the country.
Earlier on Tuesday, the chair of the 11th Congressional District Republican Committee, Meshawn Maddock, released a statement saying that “holding a town hall to protest our Second Amendment in this District is a mistake.”
Maddock went on to say to Stevens in her statement that, “You’ve got a lot of nerve holding an anti-gun rally in the heart of gun-country.”
Also in attendance at the gun control town hall were Michigan House Democratic Leader Christine Greig and “Red Flag” bill sponsor State Rep. Robert Wittenberg, who were both met with stiff resistance when attempting to push “common sense” gun control in a crowd that was overwhelmingly pro-gun.
Wittenberg, a Democrat from Huntington Woods, proudly flaunted his due process-shredding “Red Flag” legislation to the crowd, even publicly admitting what gun owners already know: that the bill is about gun confiscation.
While Wittenberg’s legislation is unlikely to receive a hearing in the Michigan House of Representatives, Michigan Senate Majority Leader Republican Mike Shirkey promised hearings for the Senate version sponsored by freshman Democrat State Senator Mallory McMorrow of Michigan’s 13th State Senate District, a seat also previously held by a Republican.
Shirkey has rightly caught the ire of gun owners for promising hearings to radical gun control legislation, while seemingly ignoring pro-gun legislation in his chamber.
Taking bold positions in support of radical gun control measures like universal gun registration, “Red Flag” gun confiscation laws, and outright gun bans in seats once held by Republicans is a new tactic being taken by a Democrat Party that is being dragged farther to the political Left.
It remains to be seen if this will be a successful long-term strategy for Democrats to hold swing districts like Michigan’s 11th Congressional District and the 13th State Senate District, but my guess is that there will be more than a handful of anti-gun Democrat lawmakers sent into early political retirement by their pro-gun constituents, especially if their approach is to yell at anyone who disagrees with their radical positions.
Brenden Boudreau is the Director of Field Operations for the National Association for Gun Rights, writing from Michigan. Contact him at [email protected]. Disclosure: In addition to his work with the National Association for Gun Rights, the author is also Executive Director of Great Lakes Gun Rights.