Michigan’s 550,000 hunters must find these quotes from Grand Rapids Mayor David LaGrand (D), the second-largest city in Michigan (behind Detroit), frightening, out-of-touch and, idiotic, as they certainly are all that.
- “If you’ve got a gun, you should be ashamed of yourself,” said LaGrand.
- After saying “nobody changes a tire with a gun,” LaGrand said guns are “for killing human beings.” (He seemed to forget concealed carriers might be wearing a gun as they change a tire, and he definitely failed to appreciate that hunters use guns to kill deer, ducks, turkeys… .)
- Communities should start “having some shaming around gun possession,” said LaGrand as he compared legal gun ownership to what he considers the appropriate attitudes toward smoking.
A lot of hunters and others in the state carry concealed for personal defense; in fact, according to the Michigan State Police, in the fiscal year October 2024-September 2025 alone, Michigan issued about 206,904 new/renewed concealed-carry permits (with 212,649 applications), marking a 23 percent increase from 2024.
LaGrand assumed office in January 2025, but he can’t claim ignorance of how his statements would be treated in the public square, as he previously served as a Michigan state representative, city commissioner and in other local roles.
After his comments on American freedom went viral, LaGrand issued clarifications emphasizing that his words were not a signal of impending policy changes or calls for new local laws. Instead, he framed his anti-gun comments as an expression of his personal attitudes toward the peoples’ Second Amendment-protected rights.
He also said that the “NRA is going to be mad at me.” He should be aware, though, that the NRA is an association of millions of freedom-loving Americans. There are many in Michigan.
LaGrand doesn’t even like dogs!
NRA-ILA noted that in his response to a police K-9 chasing down a suspect, LaGrand said: “It is time that we ask, ‘What are dogs good for?’ Like, if you need a dog to find someone in the woods, get a hound dog. If you need to chase somebody in a backyard, why couldn’t you do that with a drone? If my dog did what I saw in that video, I’d put my dog down.”
Take note upland bird hunters, waterfowl hunters and more who hunt with dogs, this mayor would like to put dogs down simply for responding to instinct and training. The old line that this guy could not (or, in this case, should not) even win an election for dog catcher applies to LaGrand.
NRA-ILA ended its analysis of LaGrand’s statements with the thoughts that “if LaGrand’s comments spark self-reflection among gun owners, it should include gratitude for the constitutional constraints and state firearm preemption laws that prohibit municipal tier politicians like him from turning their emoting into enforceable edicts. And, hopefully, it will include a renewed commitment to protecting those safeguards against public officials who are not content merely to scold their constituents for exercising their fundamental liberties as Americans.”
For anyone wondering why we are calling out a city mayor when there are a lot of out-of-touch politicians in our 50 states, the answer is if a public official like LaGrand is not called out for criticizing our guns, freedom and dogs, then who knows how much further the next anti-Second Amendment politician will go—and, anyway, it is so much fun to see how merely amplifying their own words brings them so much discredit.
