Benton Township Police Chief Greg Abrams is hoping to help prevent gun violence in the community with some of the things he learned at the 2025 Gun Violence Intervention Summit in Lansing last week.
Speaking on the latest Chat with the Chief podcast, Abrams said he learned a lot of surprising things about gun violence. One of them was that a lot of gun owners still don’t know about the state’s new safe storage law.
“Public Act 17 of 2023 requires individuals to keep unattended weapons unloaded and locked with a locking device or stored in a locked box or container if it is reasonably known that a minor is likely to be present on the premises,” Abrams said. “So that means that they don’t have to live there. They can just be visiting.”
Abrams said a lesson he’s taken home from the summit is that it takes a community-wide effort to reduce youth gun violence.
“This is a problem that’s so big that one entity cannot handle this. It has to come from DHSS, the juvenile center, police departments, churches, the parents, the teachers.”
Benton Harbor Department of Public Safety Director Dan McGinnis said the city does have reliable partners — in particular, pastors — who are willing to step up to fight gun violence, but it still needs more. He added he’s been frustrated by the difficulty of finding them.
Abrams said he learned at the summit about how these partnerships can be better put together and run more effectively to help make a difference. He’s planning to apply some of the lessons he learned at the summit in Benton Township.
