Sen. Aaron Reed, right, sponsored a bill to lower the legal age for carrying a concealed weapon from 21 to 18. The Senate approved the bill but it died in the House. Kentucky Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, left, confers with Reed, R-Shelbyville, during a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting, Feb. 13, 2025. (LRC Public Information)
At approximately noon on Sunday, July 13, 47-year-old Guy House shot and wounded a Kentucky State Police officer near Bluegrass Airport in Lexington, then carjacked a vehicle and drove several miles to a small church on Old Richmond Road, where he shot two women to death and wounded two men.
House was scheduled to appear at a domestic violence hearing the next day; he had a lengthy criminal record dating back more than two decades, which included possession of a firearm by a convicted felon; he repeatedly violated his probation.
And still, House had a gun.
Per the statistics at Everytown for Gun Safety, “Kentucky’s gun laws are among the worst in the country, and the state has one of the higher rates of gun violence in the nation. Kentucky has none of the foundational policies in place — after legislators repealed its concealed carry permitting requirement in 2019.”
So let’s talk about the most recent conversation at our state legislature regarding concealed carry.
In a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting on March 6, Sen. Aaron Reed presented Senate Bill 75 to lower the age to carry a concealed firearm from 21 to 18.
Co-sponsors of Reed’s bill included a long list of state senators: Gary Boswell, Jared Carpenter, Shelley Funke Frommeyer, Jason Howell, Scott Madon, Stephen Meredith, Majority Caucus Chair Robby Mills, Michael Nemes, Matt Nunn, Steve Rawlings, Craig Richardson, Brandon Smith, Senate President Robert Stivers, Brandon Storm, Lindsey Tichenor, Robin Webb, Stephen West, Phillip Wheeler, Gex Williams, Majority Whip Mike Wilson and Majority Floor Leader Max Wise.
Testifying in the seat next to Reed was a representative from the National Rifle Association.
Sen. Danny Carroll, R-Paducah, speaks on the Senate floor, March 14, 2025. (LRC Public Information)
Before the committee voted to advance SB 75, Sen. Danny Carroll, a police officer for more than two decades, spoke against the bill.
“I personally do not see anything to gain by passing this bill, and that’s from 24 years as a law enforcement officer,” Carroll said. “You know, you are always taught to assume that everyone is carrying a concealed weapon, mainly with the segment of society that law enforcement often deals with, and I think this is just going to kick this up to another level where they are going to be carrying concealed.”
Sen. Carroll continued, “I was lost when we took training away from carrying concealed with constitutional carry. My entire adult life as a law enforcement officer, I was trained regularly to know how and when to shoot that gun. The idea of people carrying a concealed weapon, who may not even know how to shoot that weapon, is terrifying. I think we went too far there, and I think this is another where we have gone too far.”
Sen. Carroll’s warnings, in his area of expertise, were disregarded.
Their discussion lasted ~25 minutes. The committee voted to send the bill to the senate floor, where it passed easily 26-11 before it stalled in the House.
Recent gun bills include, but are not limited to, the following:
Two years ago House Bill 153 made Kentucky a Second Amendment sanctuary state. HB 153 passed in the House 78-19 and in the Senate 27-9 and became law on March 28, 2023.
Senate Bill 13 was filed by GOP Sen. Whitney Westerfield in 2024 to address temporarily removing firearms from those who are mentally unstable. SB 13 was assigned to the Veterans, Military Affairs and Public Protection committee. It never received a hearing.
And it is notable that House Bill 5 — the omnibus anti-crime bill ignominiously titled the “Safer Kentucky Act” that garnered a massive amount of committee time, publicity and news coverage — addressed punishment for crimes after-the-fact but did not address prevention of gun violence at all. HB 5 became law on April 12, 2024.
Meanwhile, numerous firearm safety bills are proposed each year but never considered. What follows is a partial list of bills that were filed during Kentucky’s 2025 regular session.
None of these bills ever received a hearing.
House Bill 330 — Prohibit firearm possession by convicted domestic abusers.
House Bill 409 — Require a 5 day waiting period.
Senate Bill 235 — A re-filing of 2024 Senate Bill 13 (CARR) to temporarily remove firearms from a person in mental health crisis. Neither bill received a hearing.
House Bill 55 — Hold adults civilly liable for minors accessing their guns.
House Bill 93 — A person shall not target shoot carelessly, recklessly, or without regard for the safety of any person.
House Bill 20 — Prohibit unlawful storage of a firearm; establish elements of the crime as recklessly allowing access to an unsecured firearm by a minor.
House Bill 124 — Require background checks for private firearms sales; require reporting to law enforcement of firearm and ammunition thefts and losses; require the safe storage of firearms and more.
House Bill 214 — Tax credit for taking firearm training.
Senate Bill 92 —Require destruction if the firearm was used in the commission of a violent offense.
Following the 2023 Old National Bank mass shooting in Louisville, the Kentucky Medical Association designated gun violence a public health crisis. The Lexington Herald-Leader reported: “Two of the KMA’s proposals related to gun safety include barbed criticisms of Kentucky’s GOP supermajority, which, as one resolution notes, ‘has denied protection of our school children, citizens and police officers by ignoring control measures for assault rifles and killing enhancements by avoiding enactment of effective background checks and ‘red flag’ laws.’”
Two years later, after the shooting of a Kentucky State Police officer and a shooting in a church, the Republican Party of Kentucky posted the following on its X account: “We are deeply shocked and heartbroken by the tragic attack on law enforcement and members of the faith community in central Kentucky. We ask everyone to join us in praying for the families of those who lost their lives and for the recovery of those who were injured.”
Kentucky’s gun laws are among the worst in the country.
Our lawmakers are shocked, heartbroken, praying. And yet, year after year after year, these same lawmakers dismiss the advice of their own experts — like Sen. Carroll — and refuse to so much as consider bills to make Kentuckians safer from gun violence.
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