The Michigan Senate has lost its collective mind.

The 38-member body approved legislation Wednesday that would allow folks to carry concealed handguns into schools, churches, day care centers, bars and stadiums — all places that now ban them.

Rather than be deterred by recent mass shootings that have left dozens dead and hundreds injured, these senators want to take the law into their own hands - or place it in the hands of whoever happens to be there if — and when — Michigan suffers fates similar to those that occurred in Texas and Nevada.

They want to make sure people can participate in gun battles as if at the OK Corral, notwithstanding the children or parishioners that might be in the way.

But the Senate, and mostly likely the Republican-controlled House, are taking the wrong path on guns. You don't stop mass shootings by arming everybody.

Senate Majority Leader Arlan Meekhof, R-West Olive, who was among those who introduced the senate legislation, told the Free Press that a tragic mass shooting at a Texas church might have been deterred had responsible, armed gun-owners been around.

Or, Senator, rather than 26 dead and 20 wounded, there might have been more dead and more wounded.

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Bullets do not have names on them, and shoot-outs with the mentally deranged perpetrators or terrorists on one side and well-meaning citizens on the other is a reprehensible recipe for disaster.

Moreover, since the United States refuses to legislate ways to ensure that all gun-owners are actually responsible, how can this legislation define it?

All this legislation would do is increase the number of bullets flying around the heads of children, parishioners, patients and drunk bar patrons.

It shouldn't take a tragedy to see this, but seems likely with this Senate, which "is tone deaf as to what's going on in this country," Sen. David Knezak, D-Dearborn Heights, who voted against the legislation, said Friday. "Just days after a church shooting in our country, we're passing legislation to put more guns into classrooms, hospitals, churches and bars. We have it drilled into our heads that (after a tragedy), it's too soon to talk about gun safety. But the Republican Party, just days after this shooting, is trying to put more guns in places where they can harm children."

The only Republican senator to vote against the bill, Sen. Marty Knollenberg, R-Troy, said, according to news reports, that he withheld his support because the legislation would take local rule away from communities that can make their determinations about the issue. However he got there, I'm glad he did. But now we have to convince members of the Michigan House that allowing more dangerous weapons around innocent people is just wrong.

So my plea is not to them, but to their constituents. Please tell the elected official who is beholden to, should be listening to, wants a vote from you, to not do this. Tell your representatives that you do not want the state legislature to determine what is safe for your children, your fellow church members, the patients sharing a floor with your family at your local hospital.

Encourage them to read a newly released study that found that policies allowing civilians to bring guns on to college campuses are unlikely to reduce mass shootings on campus and are likely to lead to more shootings, homicides, and suicides on campus — especially among students.

That report, published in October by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and partners at Stanford University and the University of Massachusetts, found that of 111 shootings in which six or more people were killed, 13 occurred in a gun-free zone.

Allowing more guns around kids, patients, parishioners and sports fans will invite tragedies, not end them.

Oh, there is one more place the law opens up to more gun violence. The bills would make it easier for someone with a concealed pistol license to carry a concealed weapon inside the State Capitol. Perhaps if our elected officials do not care about kids, they might care about what it would mean for themselves.

To reach your legislator in the Michigan House of Representatives, go to house.michigan.gov. Contact Rochelle Riley: rriley99@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @rochelleriley. Order her book "The Burden: African Americans and the Enduring Impact of Slavery" (Wayne State University Press, 2018) from Wayne State University.