Nine Michigan counties, including Macomb and Wayne, have been awarded grants to promote and raise awareness of the state’s safe storage gun law, which officials hope will remind gun owners to lock up their weapons so kids can’t get ahold of them.

Awarded by the Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan, the grants total $396,791. Wayne County plans to use its $115,800 for an ad campaign that will include billboards and social media. Macomb County Prosecutor Pete Lucido plans to host a town hall.

“Our local campaign motto is, ‘It’s not just the law. This can save lives,’” said J. Dee Brooks, the president of the prosecutors’ association and Midland County’s prosecutor. “So we’re promoting the new law, but really trying to promote the reason behind the law, which is to save lives.”

Michigan’s safe storage law went into effect in February 2024 and requires people to keep unattended guns unloaded and locked with a locking device or stored in a locked container if it is reasonably known that a child is likely to be present. Violations range from a misdemeanor to a felony if a child accesses an unsecured firearm, depending on whether they merely get ahold of a gun and brandish it, fire it and injure themselves or someone else, or cause death.

At the one-year anniversary of the law in February, charges had been brought 36 times in counties across the state. In Wayne County, Prosecutor Kym Worthy’s office has filed charges in nine cases under Michigan’s law: Seven last year and two so far in 2025, according to data provided by Worthy’s spokesperson, Maria Miller.

Still, prosecutors seem to agree that the more awareness they can build of the law, the better.

Brooks said in addition to running an advertising campaign in Midland County, which received a $21,995 grant, he plans to go to community events, such as a summer farmer’s market, to talk to people about safe gun storage and give out free gun locks, which his office has gotten from the Michigan State Police.

He said he doesn’t believe gun owners act maliciously when they don’t secure their weapons when kids are around; he said many of them just likely haven’t thought hard about the potential danger of children getting ahold of firearms

“We just really want to make people aware of the dangers that these things unfortunately happen fairly regularly, and it’s so simple and so easy to take proper precautions; to lock the gun up or put a trigger guard on,” he said.

The other counties awarded grants for educational campaigns include Washtenaw, Jackson, Berrien, Calhoun, Ingham and Crawford. Lucido’s telephone town hall on teen gun violence and suicide is scheduled to happen in September, which PAAM communications representative John Perry will moderate, he told The News in an email.