Kentucky’s firearm preemption law is one of the strongest in the nation. It prevents all political subdivisions in the state from making any knid of regulation of the manufacture, sale, purchase, taxation, transfer, ownership, possession, carrying, storage, or transportation of firearms, ammunition, components of firearms, components of ammunition, firearms accessories, or any combination of those items.
One of the results of this language is that employees of those political subdivisions can lawfully carry while they’re at work. Louisville Courier-Journal columnist Joseph Gerth has a big problem with that for some reason, and his latest column is devoted entirely to bitching about one Louisville city employee who’s exercising his right to carry while he’s on the clock.
Jon Pilbean, who heads Louisville Metro’s homelessness office, wears a bulletproof vest and carries a gun with him when he’s supposed to be helping the homeless.
There’s not a dang thing the city can do to stop him.
It’s unclear what kind of training he has had in the use of a gun or whether he carries any less lethal weapons he can use if he fears he is endangered by someone in the community but doesn’t want to go so far as to kill them.
We don’t know if he knows anything about what the police call the “use-of-force continuum,” which helps them determine when a gun is needed or if a lower level of force is more appropriate.
And, again, there ain’t a dang thing the city can do about it.
And? As we just wrote about yesterday, homeless individuals can pose a threat to others just like everyone else. It doesn’t surprise me a bit that someone who deals with Louisville’s homeless population on a daily basis recognizes that risk and wants to protect himself.
Gerth spoke to the mayor’s office, who noted that Pilbean “is on the front line of assessing risk and safety and often works with people in unpredictable environments, such as remote areas after dark or known drug trafficking areas.” But that wasn’t good enough for the columnist.
Others who provide services to homeless people say the gun isn’t needed and that it intimidates the very people Pilbean is supposed to be protecting.
“I’m a 5-foot-tall blonde girl, and I’ve been doing this work for a very long time in our community, and I have never in my life felt like I needed to wear a bulletproof vest or a gun in doing street outreach,” Christen “Tiny” Markwell, told Courier Journal reporter Monroe Trombly recently.
And that is entirely Markwell’s choice. I hope she never does feel like she has to wear a vest or carry a gun, and I really hope she doesn’t come to the realization she’s made the wrong decision when it’s too late to do something about it.
But Pilbean is allowed to make a choice of his own, and if he’s decided he’s safer carrying a gun and wearing a vest while he’s out and about trying to help the homeless in Louisville, I don’t see what the problem is. According to the mayor’s office, Pilbean has been carrying without issue for four years, and there’s never been a problem… at least not before the Courier-Journal decided to make it one.
Even if the city can’t require people like Pilbean to receive the proper training in the use of guns or require them to also carry less-lethal weapons, it can certainly encourage them to do so by providing them with classes and even tasers and chemical sprays.
And if there are public workers who are truly entering into situations that are dangerous, maybe we should give them body cams and require they wear them whether they’re carrying guns or not.
If government workers are carrying guns while dealing with the public, the city needs to do what it can to make sure they know what they’re doing.
I’m all for the Louisville city government offering gun training courses, but I’d open them to the general public and not just city employees. If the city wants to spend money equipping workers with stun guns and pepper spray, that’s cool with me too. Personally, I’d like to see every government employee wear body cameras, no matter what their job, so I don’t have a problem with Gerth’s suggestion about the devices either.
Under Kentucky law, though, the city cannot implement any policy that would require a training course, much less going through the police academy, which is what Gerth suggested as a compromise of sorts. And unless Gerth can point to a city worker who’s been reckless or engaged in criminal activity while they were carrying on the job, he’s not really making a case for changing the current law. He’s just another mainstream media figure complaining about the right to carry.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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