LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) – Amid rising gun violence in the capital city, several bill packages aim to tackle the issue from different angles.

Gun rights advocates and those working to increase gun control legislation are following several bill packages making their way through the legislature.

Lansing has already witnessed six homicides this year, with half of those cases involving teen suspects. With eight months left in the year, lawmakers and advocates on both sides of the gun debate have presented their own ideas on how to address the violence.

“This isn’t just about school shootings or mass shootings, it’s about the one percent of gun violence in this country. It’s about every day. Gun violence is tearing apart the communities that we all live in,” said Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action.

Watts was in Lansing Tuesday pushing for stricter gun laws. On her to-do list was to advocate for four gun control bills.

One is designed to require all guns to be locked away and in a secure place. It’s just one of several bills drafted or reintroduced in the aftermath of the December Oxford school shooting.

“We know about 4.6 million children in America live in homes with unsecured guns, meaning they are not locked, they’re loaded, they are not separate from ammunition. And most school shooters are students, 80% of them, and get their guns from home,” said Watts.

She said most of the bills have been, or are on the list to be heard by committees.

But she’s confident they will pass and get to the governor’s desk.

One set of bills on the other side of the debate just passed its first committee and aims to eliminate gun-free zones as well as end the need to get a permit to carry a concealed pistol.

“We need to give law-abiding citizens the ability to defend themselves,” said State. Rep Beau Lafave (R-Iron Mountain.)

Lafave introduced the set of four bills back in November. He said the bills will allow people to get a concealed pistol permit to carry in other states and will also allow people to carry in pistol-free zones like casinos and bars in Michigan.

“Criminals don’t follow the law. By definition, only law-abiding citizens abide by the law,” he said. “When you have things like pistol-free zones in the state, you are telegraphing to the criminals where the soft target is.”

Those house bills challenging the state’s current laws on concealed carry are now heading to the judiciary committee.

Representative Lafave said a bill to reduce the price tag for conceal carry permits is also in the works.