Michigan isn’t someplace I thought we’d see at the forefront of an anti-gun push, but Governor Gretchen Whitmer and her cronies have apparently never met an authoritarian measure they didn’t like.

The most recent push is to bar firearms in polling places.

Now, there’s a lot of reasons why someone might want to carry a firearm on their person when they go vote.

However, while this push is going on, it’s important to remember that there are a lot of places where this has never been an issue.

Growing activity from armed far-right groups and President Trump’s calls for his supporters to watch polling places “very carefully” have raised concerns of possible disruptions or voter intimidation ahead of the Nov. 3 election. States will also have to prepare for the prospect of guns being brought into voting sites — legally.

So can voters bring guns into polling places? In most states, the answer is: It depends.

Only about a dozen states — including California, Arizona, Florida and Georgia — explicitly ban open and/or concealed carry in voting sites.

In much of the country, voters may bring firearms into polling places, as long as the buildings being used for voting don’t generally ban them — as many schools, government buildings and churches do. Those rules vary at the state and local level.

It should be noted, though, that in these many states, you know what’s largely absent in states where people can carry firearms into polling places?

Problems.

That’s right. All this wailing and gnashing of teeth over armed voters is Whitmer and company’s response to what a handful of idiots were planning with regard to the kidnapping plot.

Look, I’ve smacked those morons around plenty, so I’m not going to do it here.

However, armed voters don’t represent anything other than people exercising two rights at once. That’s it. They’re voting and exercising their Second Amendment rights. In a time when we’re seeing more and more political violence, if I didn’t live in Georgia, I’d probably be carrying to vote as well. Of course, my polling place is a school, so I’d still be barred, but my point remains.

We’re living in an uncertain time. Even without the pandemic, we’re seeing more and more people ready to resort to violence. They’ve burned entire neighborhoods in numerous cities. They’ve destroyed property and injured countless folks. There have even been murders.

Does anyone really believe there’s zero chance of that happening on election day?

In the end, people have carried while voting for years and years, and what we don’t see are problems resulting from that. There aren’t mass shootings at polling places–so far, anyway–and there aren’t cases of armed citizens trying to intimidate other voters. Anyone intimidated by a holstered weapon on the hip of someone who isn’t threatening you in any way or even necessarily acknowledging your existence needs to toughen the hell up.

Sure, Michigan is going to do what it’s going to do, but it helps to understand that what is being decried isn’t particularly new, nor is it particularly dangerous.