Local communities can ban smoking but have no control over gun control. They should.
Since 2013, there have been 25 mass gun shootings in Kentucky.
Thousands of citizens have been killed or injured by gun violence. The horrific toll of gun violence is not just mass shootings. Domestic violence and suicide account for the majority of deaths and injury.
Every year, Kentucky receives a failing grade in state rankings related to the strength of existing gun control laws. This unacceptable situation exists because local policymakers have been castrated by the gun lobby and their political supporters. Local policymakers are forbidden from doing anything meaningful to prevent or stop the carnage.
Imagine if the adoption of local smoke-free laws or neighbor zoning regulations were also banned by state lawmakers. Most Kentucky citizens would view it as unthinkable, intolerable and outrageous.
Local policymakers adopt these types of laws and regulations to protect the health and safety of the public. After all, who best knows the health protection needs of any city, county or township better than local officials?
Historically, local communities have always led in the adoption of innovative public health laws and state legislatures have lagged behind. Local officials are freer of the money influence of special interest groups who aggressively seek to block public health laws that help reduce the death and disease caused by their dangerous products.
Too often, state lawmakers are used as tools by greedy and immoral special interest groups to adopt weak and harmful statewide laws, or totally block local officials from adopting stronger measures designed to protect their communities. This is called preemption.
Preemption is defined as a government enacting legislation and controlling the field on the matter. Preemption can be used to set a fair minimum standard or be used dangerously by banning policymakers in lower authority from adopting stronger measures. Special interest groups, such as the tobacco and gun industry use the more dangerous form of preemption to block meaningful public policies to reduce the harm caused by their products.
Kentucky gun control policies have been the exclusive power of state-level lawmakers for the past several decades. There is overwhelming evidence state lawmakers have failed miserably. It is now time to give local policymakers the authority to curb the epidemic of gun violence. Governor Andy Beshear and members of the Kentucky General Assembly should free local communities to curb gun violence by allowing local communities the authority to enact local gun control laws. State leaders must stand up to the gun lobby and begin protecting lives in a meaningful, effective way.
Todd Warnick recently retired from a local community mental health, substance use and intellectual disorder center in Central Kentucky.