Interesting New Michigan AG Firearms Law Opinion

Michigan has some very interesting firearms laws.

We have handgun registration;

We have permits required for handgun purchase; and

We have Concealed Pistol Licenses

It's the interplay between them where stuff gets interesting.

Especially so when you consider that the whole handgun registration and carry permit scheme was designed to keep the undesirables (read: Blacks) unarmed while making sure those who were connected could carry where and how they like.

Add some shall-issue to the mix and it gets downright interesting.

The latest AG opinion accurately reads the law and gives an opinion that's congruent with the law as written but creates a weird result:

If you're a Michigan resident and you carry on a Michigan carry permit and have no other state's permits, your handgun must be registered.

If you're a Michigan resident and you have a non-resident carry permit, but carry on a Michigan carry permit, your handgun does not need to be registered.

Yep, read that one again. This is what happens when laws get piled on each other over time.

Oh, and a Michigan resident still cannot carry using a non-resident permit alone or you're going to jail.

It's all clear as mud, neh?

For you non-Michigan residents out there, this changes absolutely nothing for you. You can carry in Michigan on your permit issued by your home state (but, do not carry in Michigan on a permit issued by another state where you are not a resident) and do not have to register your pistol here while carrying.

For Michigan residents, if you want to avoid having to register your handgun, you can now get an out-of-state permit and apparently buy the handgun here using your Michigan CPL instead of the permit to purchase and not have to send in the RI-60 registration form that you will get from the dealer. Or you can now build your own pistol and not have to register it so long as you have your out of state permit with you at all times and arguably never have it expire.

At least, you could until the next AG in changes this opinion or the legislature fixes the language. Whether it will be a good idea to do this is up to the reader to decide, especially if say you get caught in Wayne County with an unregistered pistol and the Prosecutor there wants to make you a test case.

In short the AG Opinion is going to bust Michigan's handgun registration scheme pretty wide open (at least for those who go out and get non-resident permits), and break it moreso than it is now. It may finally get rid of this artifact of what was quite a racist gun control schema.

You can read the AG's Opinion direct at the source.