Kentucky, despite a Democratic governor and a fairly lengthy history of electing Democrats to that office, is a pretty pro-gun state. I mean, while Rand Paul and Thomas Massie aren’t exactly as beloved as they were a couple of years ago by most gun owners, they’re both from the state and both solidly pro-gun.
But Louisville was always going to be an exception. As a relatively large city, its sensibilities are more akin to those of other large urban centers, as opposed to the more rural parts of the Bluegrass State.
And now they’re asking the legislature to pass gun control, all for their own alleged benefits, and to ignore the wishes of the rest of the state.
Twenty-two Metro Council members sent a letter to state leaders Friday asking for help tackling gun violence in Louisville.
The bipartisan letter, addressed to Senate President Robert Stivers and House Speaker David Osborne, asks the Kentucky General Assembly to partner with Metro Council, Mayor Craig Greenberg and Louisville Metro Police Chief Paul Humphrey on locally driven solutions to reduce violence.
“Members of both parties came to me shortly before the last iteration of it and asked if they could spend three weeks trying to put together a letter that more than just 14 could sign,” District 4 Councilman Ken Herndon said. “They came up with a pretty solid letter that 22 of us agreed to sign.”
The letter is the latest push in an effort called “Kids Over Guns,” first introduced by Herndon.
“The state in 2012 took away every city’s right to have their own gun laws,” Herndon said. “And Kids Over Guns, that resolution was to ask them to let Jefferson County have our own, just us, not the rest of the state.”
The letter asks the General Assembly to ban Glock switches, which convert semi-automatic firearms into automatic weapons. House Bill 299 passed the House with overwhelming support during the most recent legislative session but failed to reach the governor’s desk. The letter notes that 26 other states, including Indiana, have passed similar bans.
The council members also request the ability to require background checks for all firearm sales, implement waiting periods for first-time buyers or require buyers to obtain a concealed carry license, and support gun amnesty and buyback programs.
In other words, they want all of the things that aren’t working in California, Illinois, New York, and other anti-gun spaces, and screw what the rest of the state really wants.
Oh, and let’s not forget the whole repeal of preemption thing, because that’s the big one, even though it should be obvious to anyone that local gun control is even worse at stopping criminals than state gun control laws are. You want universal background checks? Fine, we’ll cross the city limits and conduct the transaction.
And permitting requirements were a thing for a while in Kentucky, and Louisville never really managed to stop criminals from carrying without one. Weird, isn’t it?
The truth, though, is that this isn’t likely to happen. The House is 80 percent Republican, and the Senate is nearly 85 percent GOP. This is more than enough to override any veto, and this is a party that doesn’t tend to see gun control as the answer to anything, so guess what’s likely to happen?
The reality is that the letter is nothing more than an attempt to shift blame. The Metro Council either can’t or won’t do the things that would really make the community safer, but since they have to show the people something, they toss the hot potato onto the General Assembly so they can take the blame.
Since most of the lawmakers don’t answer to the people of Louisville, though, there’s no reason either body should give a damn.
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