Louisville Mayor Asks Kentucky Lawmakers for City-Specific Gun Controls

Kentucky is one of the many states with a firearms preemption law in place that forbids municipalities and other political subdivisions from enacting their own gun laws, much to the chagrin of gun control activists and anti-gun politicians.

The mayor of Kentucky’s biggest city isn’t asking for lawmakers to repeal the state’s preemption law, though he might as well. Craig Greenberg instead is calling on the legislature to adopt several Louisville-specific gun control measures, which is about as likely to happen as a full repeal of the preemption statute.

In an effort to reduce gang violence and other violent crime, Greenberg wants background checks for all firearm sales in Metro Louisville, allowances for Emergency Risk Protection Orders, a waiting period for first-time gun buyers and limiting concealed carry for people younger than 25. He also believes a wiretapping law, could crack down on gangs.

“There are some unique issues going on here in Louisville with respect to violent crime, compared to other parts of Kentucky and we in Louisville should have the autonomy to have all the tools that we can think of to reduce the amount of gun violence here in Louisville,” Greenberg said.

Lawmakers should swiftly and in no uncertain terms make it clear to Greenberg that none of the items on his wishlist are going to be enacted into law. 

Louisville may have its own unique issues with public safety, but none of them are going to be addressed by criminalizing the right to keep and bear arms or by treating lawful gun owners as the problem. 

Criminals aren’t generally acquiring their guns legally in the first place, and a “universal” background check law would be impossible to enforce proactively. There would also be nothing to stop residents from simply traveling beyond the city limits to buy a firearm in a private sale. Louisville gun owners hoping to sell a firearm from their private collection would be penalized by the move, but the gang members Greenberg claims to be targeting would be untouched by the proposed ordinance. 

A city-specific “red flag” law, meanwhile, would create a host of issues for both the city and state. If a Louisville resident is temporarily barred from possessing firearms, what mechanism could the state put in place to prevent them from legally acquiring a gun outside the city limits? 

There’s no law in Kentucky (or at the federal level) that keeps track of whether someone is a first-time gun buyer or already owns one more guns, which makes Greenberg’s demand for a waiting period for new gun owners both unconstitutional and completely unenforceable. 

Raising the age to lawfully carry to 25 is equally unsound from a Second Amendment perspective. Courts across the country have increasingly held that once someone is 18 they are fully vested with their Second Amendment rights, and though some states require individuals to be at least 21 before they can carry, there’s not a single jurisdiction in the country that prohibits bearing arms before the age of 25. 

If Greenberg’s concerned about violent crime in his city, the best thing he could do would be to work with the local District Attorney and police to crack down on the small number of repeat offenders who are responsible for an outsized portion of criminal activity. Asking the state legislature to adopt a bunch of Louisville-specific gun control laws is a waste of time, and frankly, an insult to the lawful gun owners who reside in the city.