The .30-30 Should Be Michigan's State Firearm

In June 2024, Michigan Republicans introduced a one-sentence bill to make the AR-15 Michigan's official state firearm.

Twelve Republicans signed on to support it. Zero Democrats did. “End Gun Violence Michigan” called it militarization, and the press called it a stunt. The Legislature moved on. Most people forgot about it.

I'm a gun owner and think a state firearm is a fine idea. Ten other states already have one, including our neighbor to the south, Indiana. Based on what they picked, most of them got it right.

Texas claimed the Colt Walker, the giant horse pistol the Texas Rangers carried. Pennsylvania picked the long rifle that bears its name. Tennessee landed on the Barrett M82, which is built in Murfreesboro by a Tennessee company. Indiana has the Grouseland, named after William Henry Harrison's territorial mansion in Vincennes.

Each of those rifles helped build the state. They're tied to state history and the people who hunted, fought, and died with them.

The AR-15 didn't build Michigan. Eugene Stoner designed it in California in the late 1950s, Colt manufactured it in Connecticut, and the military adopted the M16 variant in 1964.

It's a fine rifle, if you want one, but it is not a Michigan rifle.

What built deer hunting in this state was a lever-action chambered in .30-30 Winchester.

Winchester introduced the .30-30 in 1895 for the Model 1894, which John Browning had designed the year before. It was the first commercial American sporting cartridge loaded with smokeless powder. Suddenly, a working man could buy a flat-shooting rifle that didn't choke its own barrel with black powder after some shooting.

Winchester has produced more than 7.5 million Model 94s. Marlin built millions more of the 336 in the same caliber.

Walk into most deer camps north of Muskegon and you’ll find a lever gun in the corner. There's one in every Up North cabin I've ever stayed in. There are several in my family’s.

The cartridge has probably harvested more whitetail deer in North America than any other round ever loaded, and a large number of those deer dropped in Michigan.

This is the rifle that built Nov. 15, our glorious opening day. Around half a million hunters take to the woods on opening day in Michigan. Some school districts close. Tons of shops shift their hours around it. It’s nearly a holiday, and the AR-15 had nothing to do with any of that.

There's a political argument here too, and I'd ask the Lansing crowd to listen for 30 seconds.

Republicans designed the AR-15 bill to make Democrats vote against a rifle, and Democrats obliged. Nobody got anything except a bit of press. Republicans got to claim the other side hates guns. Democrats got to claim the other side worships AR-15s. The bill went where it was always going: nowhere.

But the .30-30 isn't a culture war object.

You can't build outrage around your grandfather’s Model 94. No Democrat from a deer-hunting district is going to stand up and denounce a rifle that's been hanging over a fireplace since the Eisenhower administration.

The .30-30 is the rifle Michigan hunters have been using in this state for 130 years.

So to the next legislator who wants an easy win, here's a freebie: Reintroduce the bill and pick the right rifle this time.

It's the rifle that fed this state and taught us how to hunt. Let’s make it official.