Louisville congressman says Kentucky GOP would ‘rather ban books’ than act on guns
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Louisville Old National Bank shooting
Six people are dead and nine people were hospitalized after an active shooter opened fire in downtown Louisville on April 10.
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Now is the time to turn the grief over Monday’s mass shooting at Old National Bank into action that changes gun laws, two high-profile Louisville Democrats said Tuesday.
“I had somebody tell me the other day, ‘don’t make this political,’” U.S. Rep. Morgan McGarvey, Kentucky’s lone Democrat in Congress, said at a news conference. “Fine. Don’t make this political. People’s lives aren’t political. Public safety isn’t political.
“Put those policies in place that put people first — people over guns, kids over guns, public safety over guns — because that is what we need to address this problem.”
Five people were killed when a gunman, a current employee of the bank, armed with a legally purchased AR-15 opened fire in the downtown Louisville office just after 8:30 a.m. Monday. Police were on scene within three minutes and fatally shot the 25-year-old assailant.
Eight other people were injured during the incident, including rookie Louisville Metro Police Officer Nickolas Wilt, who was shot in the head and remains in critical condition at the University of Louisville Hospital. Wilt had just graduated from the police academy 10 days earlier.
McGarvey, who served in the state senate until 2022, said taking “weapons of war” off the streets, helping people in crisis and passing universal background checks shouldn’t be seen as partisan issues.
“But it becomes one when Kentucky Republicans would rather ban books and pronouns, and then make Kentucky a sanctuary state for weapons,” McGarvey said, referencing three pieces of legislation passed by the GOP-dominated Kentucky legislature.
McGarvey’s comments were similar to those made by President Joe Biden in the wake of the shooting.
“How many more Americans must die before Republicans in Congress will act to protect our communities?” Biden said in a statement. “It’s long past time that we require safe storage of firearms. Require background checks for all gun sales. Eliminate gun manufacturers’ immunity from liability.
“We can and must do these things now.”
Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg, who himself survived an assassination attempt in 2022, also pointed to guns as the problem.
Following Monday’s shooting, 40 people have been shot to death in Louisville this year, Greenberg said, calling the level of gun violence “beyond horrific.”
“We need short-term action to end this gun violence epidemic now,” Greenberg said, “so fewer people die on our streets and in our banks, in our schools and in our churches. And for that, we need help. We need help from our friends in Frankfort and help from our friends in Washington, D.C.
“This isn’t about partisan politics. This is about life and death. This is about preventing tragedies. You may think this will never happen to you, never happened to any of your friends or loved ones. I used to think that. The sad truth is that now no one in our city, no one in our state, no one in our country has that luxury anymore.”
Greenberg criticized a pair of state laws: one requires that weapons confiscated by by police be sold at auction, and a second that prevents cities like Louisville from enacting stricter gun-control laws.
“Under current Kentucky law, the assault rifle that was used to murder five of our neighbors and shoot at rescuing police officers will one day be auctioned off,” he said. “Think about that. That murder weapon will be back on the streets one day under Kentucky’s current law.”
Earlier this year, the first-term mayor ordered that LMPD remove the firing pins from guns before being turned over to the Kentucky State Police. This renders the weapons inoperable in their current state, but not destroyed.
“That’s all that the current law allows us to do,” Greenberg said. “That’s not enough. It’s time to change this law and let us destroy illegal guns and destroy the guns that have been used to kill our friends and kill our neighbors. I know every member of the state legislature, like everyone else in our state and in our country, is horrified by what we saw yesterday, by what we see in other cities around the country. None of us wants this to happen again.”
Greenberg said without change, these crimes will keep happening.
“Let’s change the state laws that would make me a criminal for trying too hard to stop the real evil criminals who are taking other people’s lives and who are eager to make a spectacle of mass murder,” he said. “The laws we have now are enabling violence and murder.”
This story was originally published April 11, 2023 at 2:53 PM.
