Guns are shown at Caso’s Gun-A-Rama in Jersey City, New Jersey, which has been open since 1967. (Photo by Aristide Economopoulos/NJ Monitor)

This is one in a series of States Newsroom reports on the major policy issues in the presidential race.

WASHINGTON — A mass shooting at a Georgia high school in September thrust the issue of gun violence to the forefront of the presidential race.

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump agree that gun violence is a major problem, but they offer strikingly different views on how to address it.

Two 14-year-old students and two math teachers were killed at Apalachee High School.

While at a campaign rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, shortly after the Apalachee shooting, Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, renewed calls for an assault weapons ban, universal background checks and red flag laws.

Students should not have to be frightened of school shootings, she said. “They are sitting in a classroom where they should be fulfilling their God-given potential, yet some part of their big, beautiful minds is worried about a shooter breaking through the door,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be this way.”

Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, expressed his condolences.

“Our hearts are with the victims and loved ones of those affected by the tragic event in Winder, GA,” Trump wrote on his social media site Truth Social. “These cherished children were taken from us far too soon by a sick and deranged monster.”

Trump has survived two assassination attempts, one where he was injured in the ear, but has not changed his stance on guns.

After the first assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, Trump campaign senior adviser Chris LaCivita said at the Republican National Convention that the party won’t back away from its support of Second Amendment rights.

During a Univision town hall with undecided Latino voters that aired Wednesday night, an audience member asked Trump how he would explain his gun policy to “parents of the victims of school shootings.”

“We have a Second Amendment and a right to bear arms,” Trump said. “I’m very strongly an advocate of that. I think that if you ever tried to get rid of it, you wouldn’t be able to do it. You wouldn’t be able to take away the guns, because people need that for security, they need it for entertainment and for sport, and other things. But they also, in many cases, need it for protection.”

A majority of Americans view gun violence as a problem — about 60% — and they expect it to only get worse over the next five years, according to a Pew Research Center study.

This year there have been 421 mass shootings, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which tracks gun violence in the U.S.

For a third year in a row, in 2022 — the most recent year of finalized data — firearms were the leading cause of death for children and teens ages 1 to 17, according to a report from the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions.

Harris’ record

In the aftermath of two mass shootings in 2022, Congress passed the most comprehensive bipartisan gun safety legislation in decades.

In Uvalde, Texas, 19 children and two teachers were murdered, making it the second-deadliest mass shooting since the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in 2012. In Buffalo, a white supremacist targeted a Black neighborhood and killed 10 Black people in a grocery store.

The package that Congress passed and President Joe Biden signed into law provided $11 billion in mental health funds and $750 million for states to enact red flag laws. It also closed loopholes and established a White House Office for Gun Violence Prevention, among other provisions.

Red flag laws allow courts to temporarily remove a firearm from an individual who is a threat to themselves or others, among other provisions.

Biden tasked Harris with leading the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, which helps local communities implement that 2022 bipartisan gun legislation and aids communities impacted by gun violence.

Trump’s record

During Trump’s first presidency, he had a mixed record on gun policy.

After a mass shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada, the Trump administration moved to ban bump stocks, which allow a semi-automatic rifle to quickly fire bullets.

However, the U.S. Supreme Court, to which Trump appointed three conservative justices, struck down the ban on bump stocks.?

Trump also threatened to veto legislation from Congress that would have enhanced background checks on guns.

Promise: a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines

Democrats have long called for a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, which are typically used in mass shootings.

The U.S. used to have a ban on assault weapons, but it expired in 2004 and Congress failed to renew the ban.

“I am in favor of the Second Amendment, and I believe we need to reinstate the assault weapons ban,” Harris said at the White House in late September.

Fulfilling this promise would come down to the makeup in Congress and overcoming the Senate’s 60-vote threshold to advance legislation.

Promise: a rollback of Biden regulations

During a forum with the National Rifle Association in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in February, Trump promised to roll back all gun-related regulations that the Biden administration has implemented.

“Every single Biden attack on gun owners and manufacturers will be terminated on my very first week back in office, perhaps my first day,” Trump said.

Trump specifically said he would cancel the Biden administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy, which revokes federal licenses from gun dealers who violate firearm laws.

Brian Hughes, a Trump campaign senior adviser, said in a statement to States Newsroom that if Trump wins a second term, “he will terminate every single one of the Harris-Biden’s attacks on law-abiding gun owners his first week in office and stand up for our constitutionally enshrined right to bear arms.”

Promise: tax credits, no gun-free zones

During an NRA event in April 2023, Trump said that he was supportive of a tax credit for teachers who wanted to carry a firearm in schools.

Trump has also previously voiced his disapproval of schools being gun-free zones. Days after the Uvalde school shooting, Trump attended another NRA event in Houston, Texas, where he argued that a gun-free zone does not allow people to protect themselves.

“As the age-old saying goes, the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” Trump said. “The existence of evil is one of the very best reasons to arm law-abiding citizens.”

He argued that schools should have metal detectors, fencing and an armed police officer.

Rep. Kim Banta says constituents tell her their kids are afraid to go to school because of the fear of gun violence. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Sarah Ladd)

This story mentions suicide. If you or someone you know is contemplating suicide, call or text the suicide prevention lifeline at 988.?

A Northern Kentucky Republican will file a bill in the 2025 legislative session to hold parents and guardians civilly accountable for gun violence or misuse carried out by minor children in their care.?

Rep. Kim Banta of Fort Mitchell, which is across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, thinks of the legislation as a “wake up call,” she told the Kentucky Lantern.??

“I have constituents that … tell me their kids are literally afraid to go to school,” she said. “We just need to start kind of zeroing in on: if you’re under 18, your parents are responsible for your behavior.”??

Under her bill, people who are hurt or threatened by a minor using a gun could sue the minor’s parents or guardians and be awarded monetary damages.?

Banta? believes such legislation could incentivize parents and guardians to properly store and secure weapons (or separate them from ammunition), which could in turn lower suicide rates among youth and curb school shootings — and the threat of them.?

In 2023, nearly 4% of Kentucky high school students reported they carried a weapon like a gun or knife on school property at least one day within the month before they were surveyed, according to the Youth Risk Behavior Survey conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Kentucky Department of Education. That number rose to around 6% for the year before they were surveyed, and excluded weapons carried for hunting or target sport purposes.?

That survey also found 11% of high school students had at least one day within the month before they were surveyed when they were absent from school because they felt unsafe at school.?

Finally, 8% of students in 2023 reported they were threatened or injured with a weapon on school property at least once during the year before the survey.?

The Kentucky Department of Education also reports 15% of high school students and 17% of middle school students in the state considered suicide “seriously” in the last year. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 988.?

In its annual report, Kentucky’s Child Fatality and Near Fatality External Review Panel found children were increasingly injuring and killing themselves with guns they had wrongful access to.?

Among those, the Lantern reported in February, was a 4-year-old who played with a loaded gun he found in a glove compartment of a car and fatally shot himself. Another instance involved a 14-year-old boy whose friend fatally shot him with a loaded gun found in a parents’ bedroom.?

The panel said at the time that the legislature should research national models and develop legislation to promote safe storage of firearms.

What’s in Banta’s bill??

Banta’s bill, which is being drafted during the interim, would combine the state statutes that hold parents accountable for vandalism their children commit and when parents sign their child’s driver’s license.?

“The proposal is that a parent is responsible, civilly, for any gun violence that their child under 18 years old would perpetrate,” said Banta.?

That includes threatening someone with a gun, shooting a neighbor’s dog or injuring or killing a person. People who were wronged would then have a legal opening to sue the parents or guardians of those minor children.?

Rep. Tina Bojanowski, D-Louisville, will be the primary co-sponsor.?

A draft of the two-page bill, provided to the Lantern, says guardians are civilly responsible for “any negligence or willful misconduct of a minor.”?

The bill draft says parents and other guardians would be considered responsible and subject to paying civil damages under any of these circumstances:?

• They permitted the minor to have the firearm.
• They know that the minor has previously been adjudicated delinquent of an offense that would be a felony if the minor had been an adult.
• They know that the minor has a propensity to commit violent acts.?
• They know or have reason to know that the minor intends to use the firearm for unlawful purposes.?

The bill excludes emancipated minors or government or private agencies or foster parents who, through court order, are assigned responsibility for a minor.?

“My key motivator is just trying to get people to recognize that even though we live in a society where it is perfectly legal to own and use guns, I just think we need to back up for a minute,” Banta said. “We need to say, ‘Okay, I’m a gun owner, but that is going to extend to me being responsible for my children’s use of the guns.’”?

She hopes to get the bill before the House Judiciary Committee as early as possible during the session. She’s confident it passes constitutional and Second Amendment muster, she said.?

“I’m not restricting guns. I’m not telling you you cannot buy your child a gun. But what I’m telling you is: just be aware that you are as responsible for that child with that gun as you are with a car,” Banta said. “So if they do some damage, or they … threaten people… you’re going to be responsible civilly for it.”?

Banta already — favorably — discussed her bill with Speaker of the House David Osborne, R-Prospect, she said, and believes there is appetite to pass such legislation.?

That’s because, she said, “parental responsibility” is “everything that the (National Rifle Association), everything that gun ownership preaches” just “reinforced” with statute.?

“It’s just a matter of being very, very responsible with your gun ownership,” Banta said.? “Rather than a Sandy Hook or a Georgia incident, I’m hoping that parents will say, ‘yeah, no, you’re 16. You’re not old enough to be … on your own with a gun, or where I don’t know where you are with a gun.’”?

“I’m not telling a parent you can’t let your child go hunting by themselves anymore, and he’s 15 or 16,” she added. “I’m just telling you that if he goes and he shoots at the neighbor and kills their cow, you’re responsible. You’re gonna pay for that cow. You are responsible.”?

Banta doesn’t anticipate any funding needs for the bill, calling it an “ink and paper” policy.

“I just want people to feel safer,” Banta said. “And I want to pass something that just … makes sense.”?

Kyle Rittenhouse during his trial at the Kenosha County Courthouse on Nov. 5, 2021 in Kenosha, Wisconsin. (Photo by Sean Krajacic-Pool/Getty Images)

This article is republished from the Northern Kentucky Tribune, a nonprofit publication of the Kentucky Center for Public Service Journalism.

Controversial gun rights advocate Kyle Rittenhouse is to be the special guest of a campaign fundraiser Oct. 9 for state House candidate TJ Roberts of Burlington.

The event will mark Rittenhouse’s second appearance in Kentucky this year. His appearance last spring at an event at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green sparked several protests on campus.

Rittenhouse, 21, gained national attention at age 17 for shooting three men in Kenosha, Wisconsin, two fatally, in August 2020 during protests following the police shooting of Jacob Blake.

Rittenhouse had left his home in Antioch, Illinois, and joined a group of armed people in Kenosha who said they wanted to protect private property.

He was cleared of multiple charges, including homicide, after claiming self-defense. Two civil lawsuits against him are pending.

The prosecution of Rittenhouse made him a celebrity among American right-wing organizations and media, gaining him meetings with former president Donald Trump and political commentator Tucker Carlson.

Roberts said he first met Rittenhouse when they both worked for the National Association for Gun Rights.

The fundraiser was initially scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Oct. 9 at the Metropolitan Club, a private business club in downtown Covington. A minimum donation of $150 to attend was urged.

The venue was changed because the club became concerned after a death threat emerged on social media aimed at Rittenhouse. The post, since removed, appeared on X, formerly Twitter, as a threat to show up at the event, scare Rittenhouse and then shoot him.

The Roberts campaign said Thursday afternoon that the venue had been changed to a barbecue restaurant in Florence because of what it called “intimidation from the far left and threats of violence.”

Roberts is not a member of the club, but a member reserved the space without disclosing the nature of the “political fundraiser.” According to a source close to the Metropolitan Club, its board was not comfortable with exposing members to even the threat of violence or a police presence for security.

In a release Roberts said, “I will always stand against the cancel culture tactics employed by the radical left” and said that despite arranging for armed security provided by the Covington Police, the venue “caved to the mob’s intimidation.”?

Roberts softened his criticism Thursday night, striking a more conciliatory tone. “I don’t blame the Metropolitan Club for what it did. Its board had to act accordingly after the death threat on social media,” he said.

Roberts said his fundraiser with Rittenhouse now will be held at Smokin’ This and That BBQ in Florence.

He said the owner of the restaurant “is a true American patriot who supports our First Amendment right to free speech and will not surrender to the pressures of those who seek to silence us. This is not just about our event — it’s a fight for the freedoms that make America great.”

Guy Cummins, owner of the barbecue restaurant, said he has held fundraisers for many organizations. “I’m a former Marine who tries to do what is right,” he said.

Cummins said he was “not very familiar” with Rittenhouse. Told a bit about him, Cummins said, “I understand that he was found not guilty. I expect everything will go just fine with this fundraiser.”

Three other Republican state legislators from the area are to be at the fundraiser: Savannah Maddox, Steven Doan and John Schickel.

Steve Rawlings, now state representative from District 66, is running for the state Senate to replace the retiring Schickel.

Peggy Nienaber of Burlington is the Democratic nominee running against Roberts in the general election ending Nov. 5.

Nienaber did not respond to an email, seeking comment about Roberts’ fundraiser.

But Jonathan Levin, the state Democratic Party’s communications director, said in an email, “TJ Roberts’ latest fundraiser with right-wing poster boy Kyle Rittenhouse is yet another reminder to voters that he’s an extremist with a disturbing view of the world that doesn’t belong in the General Assembly.?

“Whether it’s spewing antisemitism, making light of school shootings hours after the tragedy in Uvalde, or disparaging Martin Luther King, Jr., Roberts has shown all of us that he’s unfit for office.?

“Kentuckians deserve leaders who will address the real issues that matter most — like good-paying jobs and health care — instead of using their platforms to stoke fear.”

Roberts, in response, said, “There is nothing extreme or controversial about the right to self-defense. When the Democrats attempt to demonize and dehumanize Kyle Rittenhouse, they are attacking those who engage in self-defense, and making heroes out of rioters who attempt to murder law-abiding citizens.”

A memorial in the parking lot of the Hardin County Justice Center, where Erica Riley and her mother Janet Rylee were killed on their way to a domestic violence hearing. Erica Riley was seeking protection from the man who shot them and later killed himself. The photo was taken Sept. 22, 2024 in Elizabethtown. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Austin Anthony)

If you or someone you know has experienced domestic violence, call the National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline at 1-800-656-4673. Call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233. You can also contact any of Kentucky’s 15 domestic violence programs.?

This story also discusses suicide. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 988.?

Georgia Hensley feels like she’s been “screaming in a padded room” for too long about gaps in the way Kentucky protects survivors of domestic and intimate partner violence.?

Now that two women are dead in her town, “suddenly there’s two or three people at the tiny window on the door” listening to those concerns, said Hensley, the CEO of SpringHaven, which helps survivors of intimate partner violence in Kentucky’s Lincoln Trail District.?

“It truly has been like begging for help and no one was listening … and that’s abhorrent,” Hensley said. “It should not take the death of a woman and her mother and the severe injury of her father for all of us to begin talking about the issues that we needed to be discussing anyway.”?

A month after a woman and her mother were gunned down in the parking lot of the courthouse in Elizabethtown on the day of her emergency protective order (EPO) hearing, advocates who work to end intimate partner violence told the Lantern the state can and should do more to protect survivors.?

That includes, they say, passing a Crisis Aversion and Rights Retention Orders (CARR) bill, which would establish a process for temporarily removing guns from people at risk of hurting themselves or others. In other words, a “red flag” law.?

In 1994, Congress barred anyone who is subject to a domestic violence protective order — or who has been convicted of the crime of domestic violence — from possessing or buying a gun or ammunition. The United States Supreme Court upheld that law this year, saying it is constitutional to disarm a person in those circumstances.?

Kentucky is not among the 32 states that have enacted their own laws and protocols to separate domestic abusers from guns, even temporarily. As a result, protection for victims varies across the state, said Darlene Thomas, the executive director of GreenHouse17, a Fayette County-based nonprofit working to end intimate partner violence.?

The violent deaths in Elizabethtown, Hensley says, should spur action.?

“The community is enraged,” she said. “Citizens are enraged. And our officials need to be listening.”??

What happened in Elizabethtown???

In early August, Erica Riley asked the court system to protect her from a man with whom, police say, she’d had a relationship.?

A judge granted her request, issuing an emergency protective order (EPO) on Aug. 8 and scheduling a hearing to consider extending the order.?

On the morning of the hearing, Aug. 19, Riley arrived at the Elizabethtown courthouse, family by her side.?

The man in question, Christopher Elder, 46, was there too.?

Jeremy Thompson, the Elizabethtown police chief, said that Elder shot Riley and two others in an “ambush type style” in the parking lot right before 9 a.m., when the hearing was scheduled.?

Riley died there, police say, the day before she was to turn 38.?

Her mother, Janet, later died at the hospital, police say. Erica Riley’s father was also injured and hospitalized, but has since been released, according to a police spokesman.??

Within hours of the shooting, police publicly named Elder as their suspect. He led police on a multi-county, 100-mile car chase. After a standoff in a parking lot in Christian County with at least nine first responder agencies, he shot himself at 11:15 CST, according to Kentucky State Police.?

Elder was airlifted to Vanderbilt Hospital and died that day.?

Domestic violence, guns a lethal combination

While the Elizabethtown shooting got widespread attention, the key details aren’t uncommon.?

The majority of murder-suicides (62%) in the United States have an intimate partner component, the nonprofit Violence Policy Center said in a 2023 report.?

Almost all of those — 95% — were a man killing a woman and 93% of those involved a gun.?

Most female homicide victims were killed by a current or former male partner, according to research published in the National Library of Medicine last year.?

That same research showed victims of intimate partner violence are five times more likely to die if their abuser has access to a gun — and 1 in 8 convicted perpetrators of intimate partner violence admit they used a gun to threaten someone.??

In 2022, about half of Kentucky women — 45.3% — and around 35.5% of men had experienced intimate partner violence — or threat of it — in their lifetimes, the Lantern has reported. ?In 2023, that number decreased to 44.5% of women and 32.9% of men.?

When police respond to a domestic violence or adjacent situation, they are required to file a form called a JC-3. Of the roughly 41,000 Kentucky JC-3s filed in 2023, 97 involved a gun.?

Hundreds more — 399 — involved terroristic threatening.

Research shows when abusive partners have access to guns, they’re more likely to kill. A 2023 paper published in the National Library of Medicine found victims were five times more likely to die when a firearm is involved.?

Advocates who work to end intimate partner violence told the Lantern that Kentucky needs a way to remove weapons from the hands of domestic violence? perpetrators.?

Unfunded mandate

Even though the Supreme Court says it’s constitutional to disarm people who are the subject of domestic violence protective orders, that’s basically an “unfunded mandate” in Kentucky, said Thomas with GreenHouse17.?

“Our systems throughout the commonwealth are having to figure out who gets them, who collects them, who stores them, who marks them for storage,” she explained. “How do people get them back? When do they get them back? What’s the process for people to get their weapons back when they’ve been removed?”?

There’s no funding in Kentucky to carry out the federal law, Thomas said, which results in an uneven application across the state.

“Some courts will sometimes ask the sheriffs to go confiscate the weapons. Sometimes they’ll tell a person, ‘you have to turn those weapons over to your attorney or to the sheriff’s department,’” she said. “All the systems are a little different by how they do it, but the federal law says they have authority to help see that weapons are not in the hands of abusers, right? How they go about doing that can look very different county to county, judge to judge, situation to situation.”?

Based on existing laws, any firearm Elder had “should have been removed from his possession at the time he was served,” said Hensley, who is also an attorney.

It’s unclear if the gun used in the August shooting was registered to the suspect. No official information about the gun and how it was obtained is available, a police spokesman told the Lantern.?

“The way that most sheriff’s departments serve those petitions and request for firearms is simply … they’ll knock on the door, (say), ‘Here you go, sir. Do you have any firearms in the house?’ And if the perpetrator says, ‘No,’ that’s it,” Hensley explained.?

Whether or not a police officer has the legal ability to enter the home and search for those weapons is a complicated question, Hensley said. “I would probably argue, as an attorney: no,” she said.?

One exception could be if the petitioner told authorities that the alleged perpetrator did have access to weapons.?

Still, she said: “truthfully, that’s an uphill legal battle. They would really need to obtain a warrant or see something.”?

Leaving is dangerous. It doesn’t need to happen alone.?

Leaving an abusive situation — when it’s often most dangerous for survivors — is difficult, but doesn’t have to happen alone.?

In Elizabethtown, Hensley organized a court escort volunteer service after Riley’s death.?

“I don’t have any faith in the legislature or in our leadership to get that done, so I’ve done it,” she said. “And is that something that a nonprofit should be forced to do? Probably not. But is it something that we’re going to do? Yeah, it is. It is because safety is the most important thing.”?

Still, survivors sometimes must enter a courthouse or go through a door at the same time as an abuser or sit together in a waiting area, advocates say.?

But there are simple — and inexpensive — solutions to those physical barriers, said Angela Yannelli, the CEO of ZeroV (formerly known as the Kentucky Coalition Against Domestic Violence), such as bringing in the parties at different times and through different entrances and having a designated space for petitioners to wait separate from respondents.?

It’s also currently up to a judge’s discretion if they hold domestic hearings over Zoom, Hensley said.?

But it’s a policy she says the General Assembly should codify.?

Doing so could lessen some of the physical stress of a hearing, she said. But, there are downsides.?

“These cases can often be difficult to determine, and so much of it is based on body language and … a determination of who you believe,” she said. “And some of that is very difficult to do via Zoom.”?

While there are safety gaps, the state has a lot working in its favor: a robust network of violence prevention programs and researched-backed primary prevention, which involves educating children and other community members about intimate partner violence, said Christy Burch, the CEO of the ION Center for violence prevention in Northern Kentucky.??

“There’s barriers to staying. There’s barriers to leaving,” Burch said. “When I think about that preparation to leaving or making a big change there, reach out to your local program. We are here. You don’t have to walk that journey alone.”

Could a red flag law help???

Sen. Whitney Westerfield, the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, sponsored CARR in 2024 but he’s leaving the Republican-controlled legislature after deciding not to run for reelection this year.?

His co-sponsors for CARR were all Democrats. One of them, Louisville Sen. David Yates, is “working to build support from colleagues in the Senate to carry the bill with him” in 2025, a Senate Democrats spokesman said.?

The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention reports that people dealing with suicidality are more likely to live if they lose access to guns and other “lethal means” temporarily, until intense feelings pass. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 988.?

Aurora Vasquez, the vice president of State Policy & Engagement with Sandy Hook Promise, a national nonprofit that works to end gun violence, said temporary removal is key to “defuse the situation.”

“It’s often painted as though CARR is producing a permanent loss of Second Amendment rights,” she said.?

But the goal with CARR, she said, is to “give people help in the moment they need it most, so that they don’t lose their Second Amendment rights.”?

“We can’t collectively as a society — and Kentucky certainly should not, given that it has a robust gun culture — should not look away from the fact that gun owners sometimes need help, and it’s okay,” Vasquez said. “As human beings, we all sometimes need help, right? Being a firearm owner does not exclude us from that.”??

There’s no way to know if CARR could have saved Erica Riley’s life, Yannelli said.

“What we do know is that getting firearms out of the hands of an abuser will save lives,” she said.??

Thomas with GreenHouse17 agreed.?

“Weapons escalate situations and not deescalate them,” she said. “I think CARR protections … would help our law enforcement and our communities feel a little safer with temporary gun removal for somebody that’s experiencing an episode of some kind.”

A 9 mm “ghost gun” pistol build kit with a commercial slide and barrel with a polymer frame is displayed in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, D.C. More than a dozen states, including some battleground states, debated and enacted a variety of firearms regulations addressing storage requirements, gun-free zones, bans on firearm purchase tracking and permitless carry. (Carolyn Kaster/The Associated Press)

The deadliest school shooting in Georgia history occurred earlier this month when a 14-year-old gunman, armed with a military-style rifle, killed two students and two teachers and injured nine others at Apalachee High School in Winder, a city about an hour northeast of Atlanta.

And on Sunday, former President Donald Trump was the target of what the FBI described as an apparent assassination attempt at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida — just nine weeks after surviving another attempt on his life.

Gun policy has been a topic of debate in America for decades, and its prominence has increased as gun-related deaths and mass shootings have risen nearly every year since 2014, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit that tracks gun violence in the United States.

Many Americans despair of ever taming the epidemic, but a new report says certain laws can make a difference.

The report, published in July by Rand, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization, found that minimum age requirements for purchasing firearms appear to reduce suicides among young people. Additionally, it indicated that laws aimed at reducing children’s access to stored guns may also lower rates of firearm suicides, unintentional shootings and firearm homicides among youth.

This is the fourth time that Rand has released the report, “The Science of Gun Policy,” since 2018. Earlier editions examined the effectiveness of other gun regulations, such as background checks and concealed carry laws, and their impact on outcomes such as crime and suicide.

The “Science of Gun Policy” report examines laws individually. But a separate Rand study published in July, this one in the peer-reviewed journal JAMA Network Open, explores the combined effects of multiple state-level gun laws, including background checks, minimum age requirements, waiting periods, child access restrictions, concealed carry and stand your ground laws.

“We should try to be looking at policies jointly, because individually, each one may have a small effect, but if you start layering these restrictions on each other, they may start to really make a difference,” Terry Schell, the study’s lead author and a senior behavioral scientist at Rand, told Stateline. “That is worth thinking about.”

The study found that states with the most restrictive gun policies had a 20% lower firearm mortality rate compared with states with the most permissive laws, suggesting that comprehensive policy approaches may be more effective than individual policies in curbing gun violence.

“There should be some hope that there is a policy combination that could drive the firearm death rate down,” Schell said.

A deadly year so far

The Georgia school shooting marked the 30th mass killing in the United States this year, defined as an attack in which four or more people, excluding the perpetrator, are killed, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press, USA Today and Northeastern University. At least 131 people have died in these killings so far.

Mass shootings that occur close to election seasons often have a significant impact on the public’s perception of guns, according to gun policy experts. But much of the discussion and debate surrounding firearms has been clouded by partisan rhetoric and money, said Warren Eller, an associate professor of public management at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

“[Gun policy is] going to play a larger role, at least in the dialogue around it –– whether or not it’s meaningful dialogue, I think, is something very different,” Eller said in a phone interview with Stateline.

This year, more than a dozen states enacted a variety of new gun laws, including measures related to storage requirements, gun-free zones, bans on firearm purchase tracking and permitless carry.

Following the deadly shooting at Apalachee High School, both Republican and Democratic Georgia state lawmakers have proposed various measures to curb gun violence.

Georgia’s House speaker, Republican Rep. Jon Burns, wrote in a letter to the House Republican Caucus that lawmakers will consider new policies during the 2025 legislative session to promote student mental health, evaluate technologies to detect guns and encourage safe gun storage.

“While House Republicans have already made significant investments to strengthen security in our schools, increase access to mental healthcare, and keep our students safe, I am committed to not only continuing this work but pursuing additional policies to help ensure a tragedy like this never happens in our state again,” Burns wrote in the letter.

Burns’ proposals, however, fall short of Democratic demands for measures such as universal background checks and a red flag law, which would allow police or loved ones to petition a court to prevent an at-risk individual from purchasing or possessing a firearm.

In February, the Georgia House approved a bill to create a state income tax credit of up to $300 for purchasing gun safes, trigger locks, other security devices or instructional courses on safe firearm handling. This bill did not advance past the Senate, but a similar Senate bill that exempts gun safes and other safety devices from state sales tax went into effect in July.

Two other gun-related bills also took effect in July. The first law bans firearm purchase tracking, while the second law established a tax holiday for guns and related items.

A special panel of Georgia state senators also convened several times this year to explore potential laws aimed at safely locking up firearms and keeping them out of the hands of children.

Pushback against gun measures

The National Shooting Sports Foundation, which represents much of the national firearm industry, argues that universal background checks are ineffective and that they don’t keep firearms from reaching criminals. The foundation also contends that universal background checks would require a national registry of gun owners, which they fear could lead to confiscation.

Many of the existing red flag laws, the group argues, lack sufficient due process protections. The group encourages safe firearm storage but opposes laws mandating specific storage requirements, citing a U.S. Supreme Court decision in which the justices ruled that trigger locks, which render firearms nonfunctional, violate the Second Amendment.

Above all, the group advocates for stricter enforcement of existing laws and emphasizes that mental health should be a primary focus in addressing gun violence.

“We can’t have no-bail policies. We can’t have ‘defund the police.’ … We need to hold people accountable for their criminal actions,” Lawrence Keane, the organization’s senior vice president and general counsel, said in an interview with Stateline. “We believe that a lot of these high-profile, tragic incidents are at bottom about mental health.”

Mental health is often cited as a major factor contributing to gun violence. Although it may play a significant role, aligning specific mental health diagnoses with policy solutions is difficult, according to Eller, of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

Much of the gun violence in the United States stems from economic crime, Eller said in the interview, but many policy discussions focus narrowly on school shootings and assault weapons. Those issues should be addressed, he said, but they represent a small percentage of gun violence in this country.

Since 1982, there have been at least 24 mass shootings in U.S. schools, defined as incidents in which four or more people are killed, according to a database maintained by Mother Jones, a nonprofit news magazine. These school shootings account for about 16% of the 151 mass shootings that have occurred in the U.S. during this period.

This article?is republished from Stateline, a sister publication to the Kentucky Lantern and part of the nonprofit States Newsroom network.

Sen. Whitney Westerfield shared polling results with his colleagues in the state Senate Friday night. (LRC Public Information)

FRANKFORT — In what he said could be his last speech on the Senate floor, Sen. Whitney Westerfield assured his colleagues that “the politics … are safe” to support a law that would temporarily remove firearms from Kentuckians at risk of harming themselves or others.?

Speaking on Friday night, Westerfield cited polling that found 76% of Republican primary voters “think Kentucky lawmakers should work to prevent gun violence, including working to keep Kentuckians going through a mental health crisis from harming themselves or others.”?

UpONE Insights surveyed 600 Kentucky Republican primary voters by phone in January.?

Westerfield unsuccessfully sponsored a bill in this session —? Crisis Aversion and Rights Retention or CARR — that would have created a legal process for temporarily disarming someone who is at risk of harming themselves or others.

The polling found that 72% of GOP primary voters support creating such a process. That number dips to 67% among “very conservative” voters and 66% among Trump supporters. Among those who identified themselves as Nation Rifle Association (NRA) supporters, support for CARR in Kentucky was at 71%, according to the UpONE survey.?

Westerfield said that under his bill it would have been “ harder to have guns removed … then it is to be involuntarily committed … to have your entire person detained against your will in a mental health facility,”?

His CARR bill said:?

• Law enforcement cannot enter a person’s home “or interior premises” to gather their guns unless that person needs and requests assistance in doing so.?
• Police must give a receipt to the respondent detailing what guns were taken.?
• While the CARR order is in effect, the respondent cannot possess or buy guns.?
• The court must tell the respondent that they are not being charged with a crime and that they have the right to rebuttal.?

Westerfield is not running for reelection, but he encouraged senators to look at the policy in the future and work on solutions to the “crisis of gun violence” in the state. Monday is the final day of this year’s regular session.

“If the policy can’t appeal to you, perhaps the polling can,” he said Friday. “The politics of this are safe.”

The nonprofit Whitney Strong, which advocates for gun law reform, released the poll results Friday.

January poll of Kentucky Republican primary voters

A child crosses under caution tape at Robb Elementary School on May 25, 2022 in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 students and 2 adults were killed. Dozens of officers from various agencies stood in the hallways for over an hour, reportedly confused about chain of command. If a school district has guardians, writes Teri Carter, what is the chain of command with SROs, the police, etc.? (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

FRANKFORT — A Republican bill aimed at increasing school security by enlisting armed “guardians” was approved by a Senate committee Thursday, despite concerns raised by Republican Sen. Danny Carroll, a former police officer, who called for more input from law enforcement.

Kentucky senator wants to expand school safety law with ‘guardians’ and mental health reports

The sponsor, Sen. Max Wise, R-Campbellsville, says Senate Bill 2 expands on the School Safety and Resiliency Act that he successfully carried in 2019. That bill was introduced in response to a mass shooting at Marshall County High School in 2018 that killed two students and injured others.

The portion of the bill that has gained the most attention would allow certified “guardians” to fill in for law enforcement officers in schools that do not currently have officers. Those eligible — including honorably discharged military veterans and retired or former law enforcement officers — would undergo special training.

Wise told the Senate Education Committee Thursday that his legislation has a “layered approach” to increasing school security while supporting mental health resources.?

“This bill is in no way replacing or removing any of the protective safeguards that we have in place when it comes to the security of our school campuses or the services provided to our students and our staff,” he said.?

The armed guardians would not have the authority to make arrests, unlike school resource officers, or SROs. Wise previously said 600 campuses do not have SROs for various reasons, primarily lack of funding and workforce participation.?

Ten members of the committee voted in favor of the bill. Democratic Senate Floor Leader Gerald Neal, of Louisville, passed.?

Sen. Danny Carroll, R-Benton, voted against the bill. Carroll represents Marshall County and is a former police officer. “I have some concerns about the amount of input that law enforcement has had in this bill, in developing this, because this affects them directly,” Carroll said before adding that SROs could work directly with a guardian and their lives could depend on their response.?

Carroll also stressed that military training, mission and experience are different from that of trained law enforcement officers.

Wise replied that he had reached out to the Department of Justice and police officers, who have also reviewed versions of the bill. He said his door is open to supporters and opponents and changes can be made before his legislation would be implemented in 2026.?

While explaining his yes vote, Democratic Caucus Chair Reggie Thomas, of Lexington, said that lawmakers should be cognizant that such legislation could lead to schools becoming “fortresses” in the future and could instill fear in Kentucky’s students.?

“They’re going to see more and more people with more and more guns and that’s going to have? a real impact on how they view school and their ability to learn,” he said.?

Cathy Hobart, a volunteer with the Kentucky chapter of Moms Demand Action, was the only member of the public who spoke against the bill. She said Wise’s provisions surrounding mental health in the legislation would have a positive effect, but the sections for using armed guards are problematic and would not stop violence.?

“Safe schools are built on trusting relationships among students, staff and administrators,” she said. “The most important thing that a school can do to prevent active shooter incidents and gun violence overall is to intervene before a person commits an act of violence.”?

Other states have similar programs. After the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018, Florida established a school guardian program.?

Among the drugs Kentucky children are ingesting: opiods, fentanyl, drugs used to treat opioid use disorder, and increasingly, cannabis or products containing THC, the main chemical in marijuana.(Getty Images)

Kentucky’s youngest children continue to be at risk of drug overdoses from accidental ingestion — with the number of fatalities and the strength of the drug, or combination of drugs, increasing.

Eight children died from ingesting drugs and another 47 suffered an overdose in fiscal year 2022 among cases reviewed by the Child Fatality and Near Fatality External Review Panel, which released its annual report Thursday.?

The majority of overdose victims in the report were age 4 or younger.

Five years ago, by contrast, one child died among the 32 overdose cases it reviewed, the panel reported.

And just a fraction of child overdoses in Kentucky are identified in the report since the panel reviews only cases where abuse or neglect is suspected in the death or near-death of a child.

In 2022, 721 children were treated in Kentucky hospital emergency rooms for drug ingestion, with 72 requiring hospitalization, according to emergency department data, the report said.

Dr. Melissa Currie, a forensic pediatrician and founding member of the panel, said such cases are among her greatest concerns.

“I do believe ingestions are a major problem and it’s getting worse rapidly,” said Currie, a professor of medicine with Norton Children’s Hospital and the University of Louisville medical school. “We need to do a better job of educating parents about how dangerous that is.”

Drug use in the home presents the greatest risk, the report said.

“Children living in a home with a caregiver using illicit or other dangerous substances are at a higher risk of accidental ingestion,” the report said. It said children also are at risk of ingesting drugs used to treat opioid use disorder, such as buprenorphine.

Among the drugs children are ingesting: opiods, fentanyl, drugs used to treat opioid use disorder, and increasingly, cannabis or products containing THC, the main chemical in marijuana.

Often such cases involve a combination of drugs.

One example it cited: A 19-month-old who died tested positive for fentanyl and morphine in a home where an adult overdose death had occurred just two months before and where both parents reported using heroin. Two other children in the home tested positive for fentanyl, a powerful, synthetic opioid.

Cannabis products were linked to the deaths of two children who ingested them, the report said.

Currie said the public doesn’t realize the risks even of legal products derived from hemp, such as gummies.

“It can still put kids in the ICU,” she said.

Most deaths or injuries preventable

Created in 2012 to conduct comprehensive reviews of child deaths and serious injuries from abuse or neglect, the independent panel of physicians, judges, lawyers, police, legislators and social service and health professionals meets regularly throughout the year to analyze such cases.

It is charged with producing an annual report to detail its findings to the governor, lawmakers and other officials along with recommendations for improving conditions for children in a state that has long ranked high for its rate of child abuse and neglect.

State Sen. Danny Carroll, R-Paducah, and a member of the panel, said he has not had an opportunity to review the final report but a spokesman said Carroll and the General Assembly generally consider its findings in crafting public policy.

The 2024 report includes cases from July 1, 2021 to June 30, 2022, and examines 202 cases in which 68 children died and 134 suffered life-threatening injuries.

Of the deaths, the majority were from neglect and 10 from physical abuse.

It found that nearly all — 90% — of the deaths and injuries could have been prevented with appropriate precautions, such as safely storing medications or securing firearms.

Areas the panel examined this year included drug overdoses, physical abuse, neglect, firearm deaths including suicide and the role of the Cabinet for Health and Family Services in responding to reports of child abuse and neglect.

Common factors in child deaths and injuries included household financial stress, mental illness, family violence and addiction.

Here are some of the key findings and recommendations:

Overdose and ingestion cases

In light of a rise in such cases over the past five years, the panel recommends better education for all professionals involved in medication assisted treatment for adults with addiction.?

Among child ingestion cases the panel studied, 37% of their caregivers were receiving such treatment including medication for opioid misuse.

That training should stress reminding patients to safely store medication and for health professionals to report when a parent relapses.

It also recommends the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure provide more continuing education to doctors on opioid ingestion in children.

The report also recommends training for medical marijuana providers. The Kentucky General Assembly in 2023 approved the use of medical marijuana for certain serious conditions though the law does not take effect until 2025.

It also urges more public education on safe-sleep practices and the dangers of a child sleeping with an adult, especially one who is impaired.

“Drinking and drug use (even prescribed) impair our ability to care for a child, making bed-sharing and other unsafe sleep practices even more dangerous,” the report said.

The panel, for the seventh year in a row, asked lawmakers to fund family recovery courts statewide, now offered only in Jefferson and Clay counties.

And it urges a statewide system to create a “Plan of Safe Care,” a federally required system to track and assist families with children at risk, particularly infants born exposed to drugs.

Despite the federal requirement,? Kentucky — and most states — have not fully implemented such a system with responsibility not clearly defined.

“We need to put this on everyone’s radar,” Currie said. “Somebody needs to step in and take responsibility or the legislature needs to assign responsibility.”

Firearms a ‘deadly means’

The report notes access to firearms continues to put children at risk.

In one case, a 4-year-old playing with a loaded handgun he found in the glove compartment of a car fatally shot himself. In another, a 14-year-old was fatally shot in the head by a friend while handling a loaded firearm in the parents’ bedroom.

It also factors in child suicides, the report citing the death by suicide of a 14-year-old boy who had access to unsecured firearms in the home.

The panel reviewed seven suicide cases from 2022, five fatal — four involving a firearm — and two attempts resulting in serious injury. The average age of the child was 13.

Sadly, the panel reports, the cases? it reviewed were just a portion of all suicide deaths of youths in Kentucky for 2022, when a total of 29 children under 18 died by suicide..

The report cited “a significant increase” in firearm injuries in cases it reviewed for the past five years involving 48 deaths and 24 near fatalities.

The panel classified such cases as “access to deadly means” that were largely preventable. In many cases, parents had told children not to handle firearms or thought they had hidden the weapon, the report said.

“Contrary to the beliefs of many parents, research demonstrates most children know where guns are stored and will touch a firearm if provided the opportunity despite education not to touch the firearm,” it said.

The panel recommends the legislature research national models and develop legislation to promote safe storage of firearms.

Currie said she understands firearms legislation is controversial but said it shouldn’t be when it comes to child safety.

“It should be a non-issue,” she said. “That should be something we can all agree on.”

Flowers rest on steps at a memorial in Louisville for victims of an April 12, 2022 mass shooting. (Kentucky. Lantern photo by Abbey Cutrer)

This story mentions suicide. If you or someone you know is contemplating suicide, please call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988.

FRANKFORT — Admitting it faces a “tough uphill climb,” Republican Sen. Whitney Westerfield filed a bill on Thursday to temporarily remove firearms from Kentuckians at risk of harming themselves or others.

“There is more support for it than you hear,” Westerfield said of his Crisis Aversion and Rights Retention Orders bill, or CARR. It would allow courts to temporarily remove firearms from Kentuckians at risk of harming themselves or others.?

Westerfield, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Senate Bill 13 is the “cleanest” version and comes after feedback from his colleagues during a December interim hearing before the Joint Committee on Judiciary.?

Draft language of the bill says:?

• Law enforcement cannot enter a person’s home “or interior premises” to gather their guns unless that person needs and requests assistance in doing so.?
• Police must give a receipt to the respondent detailing what guns were taken.?
• While the CARR order is in effect, the respondent cannot possess or buy guns.?
• The court must tell the respondent that they are not being charged with a crime and that they have the right to rebuttal.?

“We don’t want to take away guns from people who are law-abiding citizens,” Westerfield said Thursday to a supporter rally. “We want to step in temporarily to keep people safe. We don’t want it to be abused. We want to do something responsible, constitutional, to keep people safe. That’s what CARR does.”?

Sen. David Yates, D-Louisville, said judges that are entrusted with complicated child custody situations can also be trusted to know when people can’t be trusted to have guns.?

“This is not a gun-grabbing bill,” said Yates. “Public safety has got to be a top priority. And right now, we are in a crisis.”?

Sheila Schuster, a licensed psychologist and the executive director of the KY Mental Health Coalition, previously told the Lantern that “the truth is that people with a mental illness are 10 times more likely to be a victim of violent crime than to be a perpetrator.”?

She also said suicidal people taking their lives happens at an “astronomical percentage higher if there’s a gun within reach than if there’s not.”?

The nonprofit Whitney Strong, which works to end gun violence, reports that a majority of gun deaths in Kentucky were suicide in 2021 — 534 compared to 364 homicides. That same year, there was a suicide by firearm every 16 hours in Kentucky, according to Whitney Strong data shared Thursday. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 988.

Westerfield called his bill “constitutionally sound” and said he hopes it gets a hearing this session.?

Whitney Westerfield (LRC Public Information)

This story mentions suicide. If you or someone you know is contemplating suicide, please call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988.

A Republican-backed draft bill aimed at temporarily removing firearms from Kentuckians at risk of harming themselves or others garnered mixed reactions from the Interim Joint Committee on Judiciary Friday morning.?

Sen. Whitney Westerfield, R-Fruit Hill, will introduce t?he Crisis Aversion and Rights Retention Orders bill, or CARR, in the 2024 legislative session, which begins Jan. 2. He’s motivated by shootings that left children dead and people injured.?

“The law has to allow us to protect people,” Westerfield told his colleagues Friday.??

“I feel like it’s my obligation, and though I can’t speak for you, I believe it is your obligation, to not be afraid to have difficult conversations about the toughest issues that people of Kentucky face,” he said.?

The nonprofit Whitney Strong, which works to end gun violence, says CARR generally works like this:?

• A concerned community member brings evidence about potential harm to one’s self or others, and law enforcement can then file a legal petition to remove that person’s guns temporarily?
• A judge will “approve or deny the temporary transfer petition after conducting a strict, independent judicial review.”?
• Should the judge decide to grant the petition, guns belonging to the person in question are handed over temporarily to law enforcement or “a trusted person outside of the owner’s household.”?
• A hearing is then held to determine next steps, which may include “identifying opportunities for important support services for the individual in crisis.”?
• Once the person is not in crisis, the guns are returned.?

It’s unclear what Kentucky’s specific legislation would look like. Westerfield is working on two draft options, he said, which may “change a lot.”?

What are the two CARR options now??

One version of the bill includes the option for law enforcement to approach the person in question and tell them someone brought concerns forward about their safety or the safety of others.?

“It gives the respondent the option,” Westerfield explained. “You can have a hearing within X number of hours, near immediate. Keep your guns until then, not keep your guns — that’s up in the air. Or, you can give us your guns now, and we’ll have a hearing in a week.”?

“The respondent has the burden of defending that in that particular case,” he said. Timelines are adjustable, he added, since there may be practical problems getting a hearing so soon.??

This comes with other problems, too.?

“If you tell someone that you fear has…a mental health issue, or a trauma, something that you’re worried they’re about to break, and then you don’t act with some near immediacy, you might actually provoke the act,” Westerfield said. “That’s the concern. And you’re balancing that risk and that concern with the Second Amendment right that they have and no one disputes that they have.”??

The second version includes an ex parte hearing, which means a hearing could happen without the gun owner in the room.?

This version “still has the law enforcement steps,” Westerfield said. “So, it’s not just anybody on a whim asking for a judge to get your guns. There has to be some articulated, specific reasons” for the move.?

Whitney Austin, who co-founded Whitney Strong after surviving a mass shooting in Cincinnati, told lawmakers that “we know that misuse of firearms is not tied to law-abiding, mentally well gun owners. CARR was not created for them.”??

She added: “CARR was created to surgically identify the small subset of gun owners, including those in lawful possession of a firearm, who are on the brink of misusing their guns to harm themselves or others.”

Sheila Schuster, a licensed psychologist and the Executive Director of the KY Mental Health Coalition, told the Lantern that she supports CARR.?

At the same time, “The truth is that people with a mental illness are 10 times more likely to be a victim of violent crime than to be a perpetrator,” she said.?

“At the point that someone commits an act, particularly hurting someone else, it’s very likely that they are suffering with rage, with paranoia and in terms of feeling like somebody has done something to wrong them and they’re gonna (get) revenge,” Schuster explained.?

Additionally, Schuster said, suicidal people taking their lives happen at an “astronomical percentage higher if there’s a gun within reach than if there’s not.”?

In a statement provided to lawmakers about the legislation, Schuster also said: “As a psychologist and mental health advocate, I am painfully aware of the stigma of mental illness and the confusion in the minds of many people that mass shooters are undoubtedly mentally ill. This is not the case and the CARR legislation does a very good job of not adding to nor reinforcing that false narrative.”?

Currently, Kentucky does have a statute that requires mental health professionals to warn potential victims if a client makes a threat to someone’s safety.?

Additionally, Kentuckians who are mentally ill and at risk of harming themselves or others and can benefit from treatment can be involuntarily hospitalized if that is “the least restrictive alternative mode of treatment presently available.”?

Richard Sanders, the Chief of Police in Jeffersontown, Kentucky, told lawmakers on behalf of CARR that police are “faced with things today that I’ve never seen before.”

“One of the biggest problems we face in law enforcement,” he said, “is people suffering from mental illness.”

Some people, he said, “shouldn’t have access to a weapon.”

‘Meaningfully different’ than ‘red flag’ laws?

Westerfield said the bill he will file is “meaningfully different in a couple of ways” from so-called “red flag” laws.?

“First of all, the timelines are shorter,” he said. “The burden of proof is going to be higher.”?

Rep. Savannah Maddox, R-Dry Ridge, reiterated her “long standing opposition to this proposal” and concern that it has the potential to violate constitutional rights such as due process and protection against government search and seizure.?

“When law enforcement comes to seize the firearms, do they automatically know where to find them?” she asked.? “Are they told where to find them? Do they dig through the entirety of the house?” She worries this could lead to a registry of some kind, she said.?

Westerfield said he isn’t proposing any kind of “search” or “ransacking of a home.”?

“I think it’s on the honor system,” he said.?

“We must fervently resist any effort to pass gun control legislation,” Maddox said. “And we must be serious about analyzing the data and putting a stop to these ineffective policies that put innocent citizens in harm’s way. And we have to encourage privately held entities to do the same.”

Rep. Pamela Stevenson, D-Louisville, said “with every right there’s a responsibility,” in comments supporting the measure.

“We’ve got to be brave enough,” she said, “to not let people just die nilly-willy.”

Former Vice President Mike Pence took the stage to boos Friday but still championed Second Amendment rights. (Whitney Downard/Indiana Capital Chronicle)

Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb, former Vice President Mike Pence and U.S. Sen. Mike Braun, a gubernatorial candidate for 2024, called for fighters to continue defending firearm access at the annual National Rifle Association (NRA) Convention in Indianapolis Friday.

“We fully exercise our constitutional rights and we invest in those who protect them … you won’t find a place more supportive of your — of our — Second Amendment than here in Indiana,” Holcomb told the crowd of thousands.

Holcomb, Pence and Braun appeared as featured speakers for the organization’s Institute for Legislative Action Leadership Forum, the lobbying arm of the NRA, on Friday.

The two current elected leaders spoke after NRA President Charles Cotton and Wayne LaPierre, the organization’s embattled executive vice president and CEO.

LaPierre praised Holcomb for signing NRA-approved bills eliminating Indiana’s permitting system for gun owners.

“Law-abiding gun owners no longer have to get government permission to carry,” LaPierre said. “You don’t need government to tell you the sky is blue, water’s wet or that you have the God-given right to self defense.”

The forum ended with a speech by former President Donald Trump, whose presence attracted thousands of supporters, who greeted him by chanting, “USA! USA!”

Former governors, governor hopefuls speak

The NRA convention crowd greeted former Vice President and Indiana Gov. Mike Pence with boos, the only speaker to receive such a response.

He acknowledged the two recent shootings in Kentucky and Tennessee, which together killed over a dozen people, including three 9-year-old children.

“Democrats have returned to the same, tired arguments about gun control and gun confiscation,” Pence said. “But we don’t need gun control; we need crime control. We don’t need lectures about the liberties of law-abiding citizens, we need solutions to protect our kids.”

Pence called for an “accelerated” federal death penalty statute to punish the mass shooters not killed by responding law enforcement officers, in order to kill offenders “within months, not years.”

He additionally blamed much of the violence on those with severe mental illnesses, who are 10 times more likely to be victims of crime rather than perpetrators. And he pushed against releasing those with severe mental illnesses from prisons – which are some of the nation’s biggest mental health treatment centers.

“The answer to mass shootings is not fewer guns, but it’s more institutional mental health,” Pence said. “Today more than 20% of our prison population have serious mental illnesses … The truth is these people shouldn’t leave the prison because they never should have been allowed on the streets to commit a crime.”

Braun repeated Pence’s comments about mental health and crime at the NRA convention, calling himself the “feistiest and most conservative” defender in the Senate fighting against “government overreach.”

“Some people on the other side of the aisle want the government to completely replace our productive economy and nuclear families in our lives,” Braun said. “Hoosiers understand that the right to life, liberty and happiness depends on the right to defend ourselves and our families.”

Braun launched his gubernatorial bid in December. He faces two other Republican candidates in the primary race for governor: Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch and Fort Wayne businessman Eric Doden.

Three other governors, both current and former, addressed the crowd: former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem and New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu.

Democrat response to NRA Convention

Earlier in the week, Sen. Jim Tomes, R-Wadesville, honored the NRA with a Senate resolution signed by 38 of the chamber’s 40 Republicans. Senate Democrats declined to speak out against the resolution and later made a statement from the floor calling for “common sense” gun legislation.

State Democrats took a harder stance, calling for elected officials to take action to stop “senseless” violence, noting several recent mass shootings that captured national attention.

“Hoosier Democrats believe we must do more to protect our children and communities from gun violence,” said Indiana Democratic Party Chairman Mike Schmuhl in a statement. “We can do this in a way that respects the Second Amendment by putting in place reforms that are not only supported by a majority of Americans – but also by a majority of gun owners.”

“By embracing the NRA this week, Indiana Republicans are making it clear that they accept the incomprehensible and the majority-opposed status quo,” he continued.

Thousands will attend the NRA convention this weekend and peruse hundreds of vendor exhibits displaying the latest firearm technology for various models, from assault weapons to revolvers.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to a crowd of his supporters at the NRA Convention on April 14, 2023. (Whitney Downard/Indiana Capital Chronicle)

In Donald Trump’s first major public appearance since his historic arrest, the former president evoked his “pro-gun” policies but refrained from delving into his indictment when he spoke at a National Rifle Association (NRA) convention on Friday in Indianapolis.

Trump headlined the annual NRA-ILA Leadership Forum at the Indiana Convention Center, where he and other Republican presidential hopefuls spoke to gun owners — key conservative constituents.

For Trump, his appearance additionally served as a test to see if he still has the public support of GOP voters, despite his ongoing legal difficulties.

“I will be your loyal friend and fearless leader once again as the 47th President of the United States,” Trump said to an enthusiastic audience. “We’re going to have a very successful election and take back that beautiful White House.”

The NRA held its convention within two weeks of the country’s latest mass shootings, one at a school in Nashville and another at a bank in Louisville. Political pressure on Republicans to support at least some kind of gun control has mounted since the killings.

Democrats admonished Republicans for appearing at the event, arguing that GOP hopefuls showed up “to pledge their undying loyalty to the NRA and the gun lobby.”

“Republicans are going to make it 100% clear to the public that — given the choice between our families and the gun industry — national Republicans are choosing the gun industry again,” he continued,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-CT, during a Democratic National Committee news conference on Thursday.

“The Republican Party continues to put the gun industry and the gunmakers before the safety of our kids and our families. It’s extraordinary, it’s heartbreaking, and it’s infuriating,” he continued.

Trump avoids his arrest

Trump addressed thousands in the NRA audience just ten days after pleading not guilty in New York City to charges of falsifying business records in order to cover up hush money payments and campaign finance violations. That made him the first U.S. president — former or current — to be charged with a crime.

Although Trump gave a speech at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida hours after his arraignment in New York, Friday’s appearance at the NRA-ILA conference was his first public showing.

“I promised I would save the Second Amendment, and we’re going to save it for a long time to come — forever, as far as I’m concerned,” he said shortly after taking the stage, following a minutes-long standing ovation from the crowd.

Trump has consistently supported NRA-backed gun policies. He credited the group with giving him a significant political boost during his first presidential campaign in 2016.

But former Vice President Mike Pence was met with a mix of boos and hesitant applause as he took the stage a few hours earlier.

The former Indiana governor has found himself in an interesting position — he’s expected to testify before a grand jury soon about his dealings with Trump in relation to the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

While he said previously that Trump was wrong to demand electoral votes favorable to Biden be thrown out, Pence has otherwise defended Trump amid the multiple, ongoing investigations of the ex-president.

Pence did not comment about the insurrection on Friday, but instead focussed his remarks on his commitment to Second Amendment rights, securing the U.S. border and fighting “left-wing dogma.”

“It’s time we take a stand for ‘America the free,’” Pence said. “We will kick these liberal meddlers out of our gun stores and out of your lives.”

He also commented on recent mass shootings, which he largely attributed to “trans activists” and individuals with “mental health challenges.” He emphasized that those who engage in such shootings should face the death penalty “in a matter of months” after the crime.

“The answer to mass shootings is not fewer guns, but more institutional mental health in this country,” he said. “These people shouldn’t be in prison because they never should have been allowed out on the streets to commit the crimes they committed.”

Authorities in the Nashville shooting have identified the shooter as a woman who used male pronouns but have not shared any evidence linking Audrey Hale’s gender identity to the motive for the attack.

More GOP speakers rally for gun rights

Other presidential aspirants looking to bolster their political profiles addressed gun owners, too.

Prospective rivals like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott — all of whom spoke via video to the NRA — doubled down on their right-to-firearms stances.

“There are some today who see the Second Amendment as an outdated bill, reminiscent of a bygone era,” said DeSantis, who has yet to formally declare his 2024 candidacy. “It is no coincidence that throughout history, one of the first things that authoritarian regimes have sought to do is to disarm their own citizens.”

Businessman and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy held that self defense through the use of firearms “is not a crime in this country,” and suggested that lawmakers should “ban social media” for kids before attempting to “take guns away.” He further promised to “shut down” the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) if elected president.

Asa Hutchinson, the former governor of Arkansas, earlier called on Trump to suspend his campaign because of the indictment. He said Friday that he will “continue to stand” for the NRA and Second Amendment but did not speak about Trump.

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem and Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan — three other NRA speakers — are also considering presidential bids.

“Why do the liberals of Joe Biden want our guns? Because it will make it easier for them to infringe on our other rights,” Noem said Friday in Indianapolis. “Because each of you … and the NRA, because we have successfully held off federal legislation that would infringe on our fundamental, constitutional right to bear arms, we have kept our rights from being crushed.”

Indiana Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Indiana Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Niki Kelly for questions: [email protected]. Follow Indiana Capital Chronicle on Facebook and Twitter.

First responders gathered the morning of April 10 in downtown Louisville near the scene of a mass shooting at Old National Bank near Slugger Field. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer)

LOUISVILLE —?After news of a shooting in downtown Louisville broke Monday, Kentucky politicians quickly reacted to share their thoughts.?

Some called for thoughts and prayers for victims, their families and others responding to the incidents, while others made pleas for more gun control laws.?

Five people died, including the shooter, during the shooting at Old National Bank. Nine were taken to the University of Louisville hospital to be treated for injuries.

Late Monday, the Democrats who represent Louisville in the Kentucky legislature called for “real change” and promised to bring “communities together to talk about commonsense policies that would save lives.” Here is their statement:

“This morning, our city experienced a devastating loss of life to senseless gun violence. We hold the grieving families in our hearts, along with the brave first responders who put their lives on the line today and every day.?Losing mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, to gun violence has become commonplace everywhere in our nation, but we cannot allow it to become normalized.?This is not a tragedy that happened just to Louisville. These tragedies are happening everywhere in Kentucky, every single day and in every single county.

“As legislators, we owe it to the people in our districts to have real conversations about what each of us will do differently to stop these preventable deaths in our communities.?What happened today was a symptom of a much larger epidemic. And while we know that this is a moment when our community needs to come together and heal, we also know that this does not have to be our reality moving forward.?Over the coming weeks and months, we will be bringing communities together to talk about commonsense policies that would save lives. We will build a platform for real change for every Kentuckian. We commit to working with anyone who is willing to work in the best interests of the people of Kentucky.

“We will not forget the profound loss of this day, and we call on our constituents and our colleagues to help us end this scourge in our Commonwealth.”

Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear traveled to the city Monday morning.?

https://twitter.com/GovAndyBeshear/status/1645469395185958923?s=20

Others seeking to become Kentucky’s next governor also released statements.?

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https://twitter.com/RyanQuarlesKY/status/1645433818944249858?s=20

https://twitter.com/KellyCraftKY/status/1645440728326103045?s=20

https://twitter.com/KeckForKY/status/1645458644316585985?s=20

State lawmakers who represent Louisville also commented on the incidents.

https://twitter.com/KeturahHerron/status/1645432616043139075?s=20

https://twitter.com/grossberg4ky/status/1645514998335021057?s=20

https://twitter.com/PamForAG/status/1645465913771139073?s=20

https://twitter.com/DavidYatesKY37/status/1645467185643507712?s=20

https://twitter.com/KYSenateDems/status/1645457788825419779?s=20

Leadership in both the Kentucky House of Representatives and Senate commented on the Louisville shootings.

“This morning’s attacks in Louisville are heartbreaking as lives are shattered by a senseless act of violence,” said Republican House Speaker David Osborne. “We mourn the loss of innocent life and hold those wounded in prayer as we do the families of both. As details continue to unfold, we also offer our appreciation to the men and women of the Louisville Metro Police Department for their response surely saved countless other lives.”

“After another senseless act of violence, the Senate stands firmly with the City of Louisville,” said Republican Senate President Robert Stivers. “During this tragic time, we will hold the victims’ loved ones and friends in our prayers. I commend law enforcement who rushed to the scene, placed themselves in the line of fire to protect the public, and ended an obviously deranged individual’s shooting spree. If not for these heroes, even more families and friends would be mourning today.”

Kentucky House Democratic Caucus Leaders Reps. Derrick Graham, Cherlynn Stevenson and Rachel Roberts said the following: ““We are beyond devastated by what happened in Louisville this morning as we and our nation endure not one but two shooting sprees in a span of hours.? We mourn for the victims who were senselessly killed or wounded and pray for them and their loved ones.? We also want to praise the decisive action and bravery of law enforcement that undoubtedly saved lives.? More broadly, though, we should not have to live like this – living in fear and in a time where legislative inaction regarding gun violence has become the law of the land.? We must demand more.”

Members of Kentucky’s congressional delegation also issued statements on Monday.

https://twitter.com/LeaderMcConnell/status/1645442626584297475?s=20

https://twitter.com/RandPaul/status/1645443284486037504?s=20

https://twitter.com/RepMcGarvey/status/1645453289880793091?s=20

President Joe Biden called on Republicans to act. Vice President Kamala Harris also issued a statement.

https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1645469188813619209?s=20

https://twitter.com/VP/status/1645492923650252819?s=20

Both the Republican Party of Kentucky and the Kentucky Democratic Party released statements on social media following Monday’s shootings.

https://twitter.com/KyDems/status/1645477806376091660?s=20

https://twitter.com/KYGOP/status/1645458255357915137?s=20

Sen. Lindsey Tichenor says she realized Kentucky teachers lack maternity leave through her daughter-in-law. (Photo by LRC Public Information)

FRANKFORT — Legislation that would prohibit law enforcement and public funds in Kentucky from going? toward enforcing any “federal ban” on firearms, ammunition and firearm accessories is headed to the governor’s desk after receiving final approval in the GOP-controlled state Senate.?

House Bill 153, primarily sponsored by Rep. Josh Bray, R-Mount Vernon, has faced criticism from opponents throughout its movement through the legislature that the proposed law is unconstitutional, could strain working relationships between federal officials and Kentucky law enforcement and would ultimately make communities less safe.?

Proponents of the bill say it’s needed to protect gun rights of Kentuckians from overreaching federal regulations. Similar laws have passed in other Republican-controlled state legislatures.?

The bill’s language would also prevent local governments and public agencies from adopting rules or spending public funding or resources to enforce such a federal ban on firearms.?

“There is nothing in this bill that would prevent this General Assembly from enacting new laws and restrictions on firearms. What is in this bill is the affirmation that Kentuckians and only Kentuckians should decide the future of our Second Amendment rights,” said Sen. Lindsey Tichenor, R-Smithfield, who advocated for the bill on the Senate floor.?

The bill passed the Senate by a vote of 27-9 despite concerns voiced from Democrats and a Republican; three Republicans joined almost all but one Democrat in voting against the bill.?

Democratic Caucus Chair Reggie Thomas, D-Lexington, called the bill “blatantly” unconstitutional.

“Federal law preempts the acts of the state law. This ban simply cannot stand — cannot stand constitutional scrutiny,” Thomas said.

A federal judge last week struck down a similar law in Missouri as unconstitutional and void because of the supremacy clause in the U.S. Constitution. That clause establishes that federal law generally takes precedence over state law.?

Sen. Adrienne Southworth, R-Lawrenceburg, argued that the bill was constitutional because any federal law or regulation that would infringe on Kentuckians’ Second Amendment rights would be unconstitutional itself.?

“Are we going to have our law enforcement, our tax dollars, our efforts diverted from the needs of? the commonwealth?” Southworth said. “This is the kind of thing that is absolutely in our purview.”?

Sen. Danny Carroll, R-Benton, was one of the three Republicans who voted against the bill.?

Carroll, a former assistant police chief in Paducah, in explaining his vote said he was “totally opposed” to federal overreach on firearms but that the legislation, as written, could put law enforcement in an “impossible situation” of choosing to violate an oath to support the U.S. Constitution by not aiding federal officials.?

Under the bill, police officers or others found in violation of the new law could be charged with a misdemeanor.?

“We are getting into a habit of going to extremes to make a point. We can make a point without having negative impacts on others who work within our government. It’s not fair to law enforcement,” Carroll said.?

Rep. Josh Bray, R-Mount Vernon. (LRC Public Information)

A bill that would ban state and local law enforcement, governments and their employees from enforcing federal gun laws or regulations in Kentucky advanced from a Senate committee Thursday morning.?

House Bill 153, sponsored by Rep. Josh Bray, R-Mount Vernon, would prevent local law enforcement, employees of public agencies and local governments from assisting or cooperating with a “federal ban” on firearms, firearms accessories and ammunition. The bill’s language would also prevent local governments and public agencies from adopting rules or spending public funding or resources to enforce such a federal ban on firearms.?

The Republican reiterated his support for the bill, speaking before the Senate Veterans, Military Affairs and Public Protection Committee.?

“The concept behind it is pretty simple: it says going forward, no state tax dollars, state manpower will be allocated towards the enforcement of a federal firearm ban,” Bray said.?

The legislation passed out of the House on mostly party lines last month. A similar bill sponsored by Bray last year also had passed the House but failed to receive a vote by the full Senate before the end of the legislative session.?

Anderson County writer Teri Carter testified against the bill, pointing to how a federal judge this week struck down a similar law in Missouri as unconstitutional and void because of the supremacy clause in the U.S. Constitution. That clause establishes that federal law generally takes precedence over state law.?

Carter referenced reporting by the Kansas City Star that following the Missouri legislation being signed into law in 2021, some police departments there restricted cooperation with federal authorities on collaborations such as sending gun serial number information to federal databases or joint drug task forces.?

?“I live in a mostly rural county in Kentucky. I talk to my local police department regularly. I have lunch with them every month,” Carter said. “I don’t see where this helps my community. I don’t see where this helps make everyone safer. I don’t see where this helps my police department.”

Chuck Eddy, a former Democratic candidate for Kentucky Senate District 22 who was endorsed by the gun control advocacy group Moms Demand Action, said the legislation would require the state “to spend money defending this bill.”?

“In the end, it will not survive,” Eddy. “The fact of the matter is, the Supreme Court is not going to blow up the federal constitution to allow individual states to say, ‘Nah, we don’t want to follow this.’”?

Bray had previously responded to concerns about cooperation between local law enforcement and federal authorities by saying such concerns were not that “big of an issue.”?

In the legislation’s language, it states that nothing in the bill would prevent or limit local law enforcement, local governments or public agencies from working with federal officials if the collaboration was about something other than a federal gun ban or regulation.??

Bray, responding to a question from Sen. Karen Berg, D-Louisville, said the bill was to make sure people like his wife can protect themselves through the use of firearms, referencing a recent federal rule change banning stabilizing braces for pistols as an example of overreach.?

That federal rule change has gotten pushback from federal gun rights groups such as the National Rifle Association that say such braces were originally designed for firearms use by veterans with disabilities.?

“Murder’s already illegal. Possession of a firearm by a felon is already illegal. But what it’s going to stop is it’s going to stop people with disabilities or people like my wife who — I frequently have to be up here, so she’s home alone — it’s going to stop her from being able to defend herself or her family as she sees fit,” Bray said.?

Disclaimer: Teri Carter contributes columns to the Kentucky Lantern.

An NRA representative urged Kentucky lawmakers to approve concealed weapons on Kentucky's college and university campuses. (Photo by Aristide Economopoulos for NJ Monitor)

FRANKFORT — Republican legislation that would ban colleges, universities and any other “postsecondary education facility” from restricting or banning concealed-carry firearms on campuses advanced out of a Tuesday morning House committee meeting.?

House Bill 542, sponsored by Rep. Savannah Maddox, R-Dry Ridge, was previously an unrelated bill about “workforce development” before the title and content of the bill were changed through a substitute bill.?

Currently, colleges and universities in Kentucky can choose whether to restrict or ban people with concealed carry permits from carrying firearms on their respective campuses. All of Kentucky’s public universities and the state’s community and technical college system prohibit concealed carry firearms on campus, with an exception for concealed-carry permit holders who keep a firearm locked in a personal vehicle.?

?A lobbyist with the National Rifle Association testified in favor of the bill, while organizations representing universities and colleges throughout Kentucky were unified in their opposition to the legislation. NRA lobbyist Art Thomm said in testimony that the bill “seeks to empower men and women to protect themselves from violent attacks.”?

“Throughout the movement of this legislation, you will hear a tirade of scenarios — how crime will increase, how safety will diminish and how our children will be placed at risk and so on. Blood will run through the streets at our state colleges and universities. There’s one major problem with that thought process — it’s wrong,” Thomm said.?

The NRA recently supported a similar bill in West Virginia that was signed into law allowing people with concealed carry permits to bring firearms on college campuses.?

Representatives for universities and colleges, in opposing the bill, state they are against efforts to limit the decision-making ability of higher education institutions.?

In a statement issued after the committee action, Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education President Aaron Thompson said “any legislation that allows concealed weapons on campuses threatens students’ real and perceived safety.”

“Our public college and university chiefs of police are unanimous in their professional judgment that any law or policy that increases the prevalence of deadly weapons on campus makes those places where our friends and families go to work, attend school, and enjoy community with each other much less safe,” he said.?

Thompson said the council was “unaware of any reliable statistical evidence” that carrying concealed firearms reduces violence on campuses. The council serves as a coordinating board serving Kentucky’s public universities and community and technical colleges.?

The president of the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, which represents 18 private, non profit higher education institutions in the state, also issued a statement saying they’re still trying to get clarification on “certain elements” in Maddox’s bill.?

“AIKCU opposes any efforts to limit the ability of independent colleges and universities to determine how to best protect the safety and wellbeing of their students, faculty, and staff,” Mason Dyer said.?

University of Kentucky spokesperson Jay Blanton said the university deeply respects policymakers but that UK’s “law enforcement, safety and health officials are unequivocal in their belief that allowing guns on campus will make our community less safe — whether that’s in a classroom, hospital or athletics venue.”

?“We will continue to make that case, respectfully and candidly, in direct conversations with lawmakers now and in the coming days,” Blanton said.

When asked Tuesday afternoon if the public and universities were given enough advance notice regarding her substitute bill that a committee approved, Maddox said she gave members of the House Veterans, Military Affairs and Public Protection Committee advance copies of the substitute bill and had met with universities about the issue in January.

“It’s not a function of transparency on the issue,” she said. “They certainly had enough of an opportunity to mount opposition.”

Maddox had also filed a separate bill this legislative session that would remove concealed carry restrictions or bans from elementary and secondary schools, except for students.

Rep. Josh Bray

FRANKFORT — A bill that would block local assistance with federal firearms bans — one of several filed by Republicans in the GOP-dominated Kentucky legislature that aim to curb gun control restrictions — sailed out of a state House of Representatives committee Tuesday.?

House Bill 153 would prevent local law enforcement, employees of public agencies and local governments from assisting or cooperating with a “federal ban” on firearms, firearms accessories and ammunition. As written, it would also prevent local governments and public agencies from adopting rules or spending public funding or resources to enforce such a federal ban on firearms.?

Rep. Josh Bray, R-Mount Vernon, tried to pass a similar bill last year with the legislation easily passing the House but failing to get through the Senate.?

Bray in his testimony in front of the House Committee on Veterans, Military Affairs and Public Protection referenced a recent federal rule change by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) reclassifying some pistols with a “stabilizing brace” — a rear attachment outfitted on pistols — as more strictly-regulated “short-barreled rifles.”?

“The Federal ATF has made a ruling on pistol braces that they’ve determined that now all of the sudden these popular firearm accessories are illegal,” Bray said. “Our local tax dollars won’t be going to enforce Second Amendment issues that the federal government deems to be inappropriate.”?

In the press release from last month, ATF Director Steven Dettelbach said the federal rule change would “enhance public safety” and prevent people from circumventing federal laws regarding stabilizing braces that would “transform” pistols into short-barreled rifles.

The federal rule has received pushback from gun-rights groups such as the National Rifle Association, which has pointed out the braces were originally designed for veterans with disabilities.?

Bray believes the legislation has a “pretty good” chance of passing this year given that the version of the similar bill he tried to push last year received strong support in the House and had stalled late in last year’s legislative session.?

A reporter asked Bray about concerns raised last year by former Democratic Rep. Patti Minter of Bowling Green, who worried whether the bill would tie the hands of local law enforcement from working with federal agents.?

Bray said he didn’t believe the concerns were that “big of an issue.”?

In the language of the bill, it states that nothing in the bill would prevent or limit local law enforcement, local governments or public agencies from working with federal officials if the collaboration was about something other than a federal gun ban or regulation.??

The Kentucky State Fraternal Order of Police did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the bill.