Here's what most Michiganders want: No guns in schools, daycare centers or churches. That's the clear result of public polling conducted in the state and in the region.

What the Legislature delivers: Bill after bill aimed at expanding access to firearms, increasing the number of places guns can be carried, either in the open or concealed, enhancing the ease with which firearms can be transported, and gutting local governments' ability to make decisions about when and where guns may be carried.

There's a disconnect, here, and it's not going away anytime soon.

Last week, the state Senate -- under the tone-deaf guidance of Majority Leader Arlan Meekhof, R-West Olive, who noted without apparent irony that the frequency with which mass shootings occur means it's never a good time to take up pro-gun legislation -- passed a bill package that would strip the ability of schools and houses of worship to bar concealed carry, for gun owners who've received additional training. The votes came the month after the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history, and days after a church shooting in Texas claimed 26 lives.

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That's directly at odds with what Michiganders surveyed in a 2015 poll conducted by Lansing-based EPIC/MRA said they wanted: 57% opposed concealed carry in schools, and 69% opposed open carry there, legal under current law.

The bills now move to the Republican-led state House of Representatives; they're expected to pass. Gov. Rick Snyder vetoed a similar set of bills in 2012, and reports suggest he'll do the same this year.

He should. But our GOP-led Legislature should start listening to their constituents, and stop producing short-sighted policy voters don't want and that the state doesn't need.

Out of touch

In a poll taken in October of this year, Gallup found that 60% of Midwestern respondents believe laws governing the sale of firearms should be made more strict than they are now; just 5% said such laws should be less strict. Seventy-one percent believe all privately owned guns should be registered with police, compared to 29% who don't; 73% support a 30-day waiting period for all gun sales, and 94% of respondents think background checks should be required for all gun purchases.

No polls that I found tested whether Michiganders thought the state should be exempt from compliance with federal firearms laws, as Senate Bill 63, introduced in 2013 by state Sen. Phil Pavlov, R-St. Clair Shores, proposed. Nor have voters weighed in on whether some federal agents should be barred from carrying weapons, the intention of a 2014 bill introduced by former state Rep. Tom McMillin (now a member of the state Board of Education). Both died in committee.

Over the last five years, more than two-thirds of the roughly 130 proposed bills to alter access to firearms would expand, not restrict, gun rights or weaken the effectiveness of gun ownership registries maintained by law enforcement. At the same time, legislation that would create the kinds of penalties or protections that might prevent tragedy can't get a hearing.

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Like a bill that would create penalties for gun owners whose weapon is used by a child to harm another person. In September, a child at a home daycare in Dearborn shot two toddlers with a gun belonging to the daycare operator. Child access prevention laws, says Linda Brundage of the Michigan Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence, create incentive for gun owners to keep their weapons safely stored.

Or another bill that would allow family members or loved ones of a gun owner who is becoming unstable to seek a form of personal protection order, subject to judicial approval and due process review, that would allow law enforcement to temporarily confiscate the person's weapons. It's an attempt to prevent events like a 2014 shooting in Santa Barbara, Brundage said, when killer Elliot Rodger's family knew he was becoming unstable, but were powerless to prevent him from obtaining weapons.

"What would be the NRA argument against either of the pieces of legislation I described?" she said. "The child access prevention legislation doesn’t say you can’t have it, it says if you’re not using it, lock it up. With the PPO, it’s a judge’s decision. To me it’s just ludicrous. I’m out of words." There's a host of other common-sense laws legislators could pass -- Michigan, Brundage notes, doesn't require gun owners to report when a firearm is stolen.

"The critical piece for people to understand," Brundage said, "is there is not a gun violence prevention group in the country that’s coming after your guns."

Wasting time

So why does expanding access to weaponry consume so much of Lansing's time?

The pro-gun lobby -- led most prominently by the National Rifle Association -- works to mobilize primary voters, surveying prospective candidates' views on firearms, rating them and spending relatively small sums to spread the word, largely through cost-effective endorsement postcards, Craig Mauger of the Michigan Campaign Finance Network wrote last month in an analysis of gun-lobby spending in 2016 state races.

And, as Mauger wrote, the group's metrics are uncompromising: Candidates who staunchly support gun rights, who proudly claim gun ownership, are rated poorly by the NRA and other gun advocacy groups if they oppose any measure that might restrict gun ownership. That could include curbing the ability to carry openly, everywhere, Mauger wrote or even common-sense gun laws favored by the majority of midwesterners and Michiganders.

It's an effective strategy. Because of the way Michigan's legislative districts are drawn, primaries matter, and a relatively small number of votes can swing an outcome.

But it's easy to disrupt. Mostly, vote in primaries -- and tell Lansing lawmakers to stop wasting our time.

Call the people who control the process. Contact Senate Majority Leader Arlan Meekhof at 517-373-6920 or SenAMeekhof@senate.michigan.gov. Contact House Speaker Tom Leonard: 517-373-1778 or TomLeonard@house.mi.gov.