Friday, February 24, 2017

KY: Constitutional Carry back in the Running



Kentucky seems a natural match for "permitless" or Constitutional carry. The state is very Second Amendment friendly.  But in the Kentucky Senate, the Constitutional carry bill was pulled from consideration a week ago. It was said that the votes for the bill were not there, and the Republican leadership did not wish to risk a loss.  The Senate bill is SB 7.  SB 7 has now been changed to conform to the House version of Constitutional carry, HB 316.  One of the changes was to limit Constitutional carry to adults who are 21 years old, or older.

A Second Amendment activist who has been intimately involved with the Kentucky Constitutional carry legislation, has insight into the situation.  From gutshot at opencarry.org:
Today, Senator Robin Webb introduced a complete and total substitute to SB 7. Senator Web is a democrat from Grayson. The amendment is word for word like HB 316. The only difference between the new SB 7 and the old one is that the new bill requires anyone carrying a concealed weapon to be 21 years old or older. The other wording in the new bill just says the same things that the old bill said, but says it in fewer words. There is one other democrat co-sponsor of SB 7, Ray Jones of Pikeville. There may be some life in this bill yet.
Gutshot says that the learning curve in Kentucky has been steep.
Maybe,but most of the legislators that I have talked to think that Ky. is plowing new ground here. They had never heard of constitutional carry before they saw this years bill and then thought that it was the first one ever written. The ignorance and misunderstandings around this bill are amazing.They don't believe it when I tell them that other states have had this for years. There has been a terrific learning curve and we haven't caught up with it yet.
The Constitutional carry bills keep the current permit system in place.  Kentucky is one of the states where a carry permit serves as an alternate to NICS checks for firearm sales from gun dealers. A permit is useful for carry in other states that have reciprocity with Kentucky.

The Kentucky Senate consists of 11 Democrats and 27 Republicans. That ratio is the same as in 2015.

The Kentucky House consists of 36 Democrats and 64 Republicans, a dramatic reversal from 2015, where the House had 53 Democrats and 46 Republicans.

The Kentucky Governor is Matt Bevin.

The Kentucky legislature has a very short session in odd numbered years.  In odd numbered years, the legislature is limited to 30 days in session, and the session must end by March 30th.  If Kentucky is going to pass Constitutional carry this year, they will need to get busy.  Yesterday's strike and insert amendment to SB 7 shows that it can happen.

©2017 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

This brings to mind Fort Campbell Kentucky, if you join up or get drafted at 18, it would be nice to have some familiarity with weapons. If you can be trained at 18 and sent off to war to kill people it seems natural to want to know how things work and at least know where the sights are. In my basic training unit we had one particular, flower child that had never touched a gun in his life and wanted nothing to do with them. He was sent to an 11 bravo AIT. by the time I got to Vietnam he had a reputation for being a radical killer with a 50 caliber machine gun. He decided that shooting was actually fun. and he still had his love beads on. The military can train you to kill but you cant carry a weapon for self defense until you are 21. where is the logic? what makes age so important?

When I lived in Indiana I knew of an 11 year old boy that collected pop bottles for the deposit. until he could buy a single shot bolt action .22 rifle. His family was very poor. His mother would give him one bullet to go out and get something for the family to eat. a lot of fried rabbit and rabbit stew. age limit is stupid. And tell me why the discrimination law allows for age discrimination while exercising a constitutional right.

Anonymous said...

When my older brother was age eleven he was a YMCA shooting team champion.

Anonymous said...

I started teaching my youngest daughter to shoot at age 8 years. don't piss her off at less than a half mile.

Unknown said...

Why wouldn't any American past this bill? Greed only thing I can think of. Why make us pay for are right? Shame on any 1 that keep this from becoming Kentucky law!!!!