LOUISVILLE, KY, April 20, 2023 –The last twelve days have been filled with unimaginable bloodshed and heartache for our city as four different gun-related events have taken the lives of eleven people and injured fifteen others. We are (again) at the focus of the national spotlight for being the next on an incredibly long list of cities to experience a mass shooting event. But while the spotlight might be new, the realities of gun violence are all too familiar.  

For years, Louisville has seen a rise in homicides, suicides, and other gun-related deaths and injuries. But aside from calls for more police and marginal investments in intervention strategies, we have largely conceded defeat to the gun lobby and the disheartening notion that nothing can be done.

“This decades-long debate about guns has forced many people into a traumatic and reluctant acceptance of a violent daily reality,” said Lyndon Pryor, Interim President & CEO of the Louisville Urban League. “Many believe that nothing can or will change, particularly in places like Kentucky. But we believe change is still possible as long as we are willing to be creative and courageous.”

The Louisville Urban League believes there are areas where concrete, difference-making action can happen: public narrative, public data, public policy, and public health. 

CHANGE THE NARRATIVE

How we–community members, advocates, politicians, and the media–talk about gun violence and gun violence victims, matters. The language we use, the voices we prioritize, and the perspectives to which we give oxygen all critically impact public sentiment and, ultimately, the time it takes to get to actual solutions. 

To change the language we use in the public sphere, we need to be clear about what kinds of violence plague our communities. Gun advocates use “violence” instead of the specific threats to the community which are “gun violence” or “shootings.”  We should call a “thing” a “thing,” not a euphemism to mask the truth. This also means discussing gun-related incidents in all the ways: death by suicide, police-involved shootings, intimate partner homicides, and accidental shootings. Accurately depicting these instances as forms of gun violence provides us with a more complete picture of how pervasive and impactful these weapons are in our lives.

Until we humanize all perpetrators and victims of gun violence, we will not see the violence as a public health emergency affecting the entire community. At present date, only one of the shooters of the most recent four incidents has been identified. He, a young white male, has been given a complete narrative arc from his athletic participation, to struggles with mental health, to a mass shooting. If past media coverage is any indication, the other shooters–assumed to be Black–will be melded into an amorphous glob called “the community” and we will immediately begin to talk about criminality. Similarly, in “Man killed in JCTC shooting in Louisville identified,” the criminal history of the deceased victim is described. This information is unnecessary and irrelevant; and, it signals readers to lower their levels of alarm as if one death is more justified than another. No victim of the Old National Bank shooting, which occurred on the same day, was criminalized. And no victim of gun violence should be.  

PURSUE THE DATA

Unfortunately, since the nineties, gun advocates have used every tool available to obscure, hide, and misrepresent the data on gun violence. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is federally restricted from addressing causes of gun violence by The Dickey Amendment, a provision added to the U.S. federal budget in 1996 that prohibits the use of CDC funding for advocating or promoting gun control.  This amendment has had a chilling effect on the Federal government’s ability to address this health crisis. Locally, during our most recent session of the state general assembly, a bill that would create an office to study and track gun violence around the state; was never even heard in Frankfort.

Non-profit organizations, universities, and think tanks have thankfully pursued the truth without fear of political repercussions. We need only follow the data to see how some legislation or inaction harms us:

• In Kentucky, the rate of gun deaths rose 46% from 2011 to 2020. Under current Kentucky law, any person 21 years or older who is legally able to purchase a firearm may carry it concealed in public, without a permit. 
• In 2020, Kentucky had the 13th-highest gun death rate in the country and supplied crime guns to other states at the eighth-highest rate. 
• In 2021, gun deaths in Kentucky were 25% greater than in 2018, the year before permitless carry was allowed. Adding gun homicides during the same time period, the rate increases to 75%.  
• Americans overall are 25x more likely to die of gun violence than in any other high-income country.
• Every year, an average of 484 people in Kentucky die by gun suicides and 39 are wounded by gun suicide attempts—a rate of 10.3 suicides and 0.9 suicide attempts per 100,000 people. Kentucky has the 19th-highest rate of gun suicides and gun suicide attempts in the US.
• Kentucky has the 17th-highest societal cost of gun violence in the US at $1,104 per person each year. Gun deaths and injuries cost Kentucky $5 billion, of which $181 million is paid by taxpayers.

ADDRESS THE POLICY

According to the Center for American Progress, gun crime is highest in states with lax gun laws.  Kentucky has some of the least restrictive gun laws. Consequently, there are competing interests between unfettered access to guns with the least possible restrictions and cities dealing with gun violence. Unsurprisingly, gun advocacy continues to win in our state, with lawmakers during the latest legislative session voting to make Kentucky a Second Amendment sanctuary state, prohibiting the enforcement of a federal ban or regulation of firearms.

If the Kentucky General Assembly is going to continue to stand in opposition to any common sense gun control, then it is up to Louisville’s lawmakers to take a courageous stand. It is time for Louisville, through local ordinances–to boldly declare our position on guns and gun violence. We recognize that in doing so, the city would open itself to litigation from individuals, gun advocacy groups, and the Attorney General seeking to nullify any policy changes. But saving human lives, locally, can no longer take a backseat to bad policy and cowardly policymakers at the state level. We move that Louisville Metro Council enact the following policy changes if the state legislators refuse to act:

1. Establish line items in both the state and city budgets to provide funding to community-based violence prevention and intervention strategies. 
2. Enact a statute prohibiting carrying or purchasing guns after violent misdemeanor offenses. 
3. Enact a statute to create a statewide Office for Safer Communities.*
4. Enact a statute that requires lost or stolen guns to be reported. In other states, this was found to significantly reduce interstate gun trafficking. 
5. Enact an ordinance to prevent owners from keeping their guns in unattended cars at any location. This would have a significant effect on legal guns getting into the wrong hands via theft.  
6. Enact a waiting period to purchase a weapon. Waiting period laws also appear to reduce gun homicide rates. One study found that waiting period laws that delay the purchase of firearms by a few days can reduce gun homicides by roughly 17%.
7. Enact a “red flag” law that allows courts to temporarily seize guns from anyone who seems to be a danger to themselves or others.  
8. Require background checks on all gun sales.  Including private gun sales and purchases at gun shows.
9. Create public service announcements on topics such as gun safety, safe storage, and private gun sales via the Louisville Metro Public Health and Wellness Department. 
10. Repeal KRS 65.870 which prohibits local governments from enacting gun control.  Allow Louisville to establish citywide regulations on guns.* 
11. Repeal HB 153 (2023) which makes Kentucky a 2nd Amendment Sanctuary state.*
12. Repeal KRS 16.220 which prohibits the destruction of confiscated guns.*
13. Repeal KRS 237.109 which makes a concealed weapon permit optional.*

*The Louisville Urban League recognizes that Metro Council has no authority to repeal state statutes or establish a statewide office.

INVEST IN HEALTH AND WELLBEING

Narratives and policies are just part of the prescription for a healthy community. A healthy community ultimately needs more to thrive. Louisville, like the rest of the United States, is experiencing a mental health crisis. Mental illnesses are common in the United States and can often go untreated or undiagnosed. Any mental illness (AMI) is defined as a mental, behavioral, or emotional disorder. AMI can vary in impact, ranging from no impairment to mild, moderate, and even severe impairment. It is estimated that more than one in five U.S. adults live with AMI (57.8 million in 2021). AMI can play a role in some gun-related incidents, including suicide and homicide attempts, but it is also imperative that we recognize the societal impact of factors like poverty, housing instability, food insecurity, and discrimination of all forms can create or exacerbate AMI. These structural factors/oppressions have material consequences on the mental health of us all. These factors can create a ripple effect of stress, grief, a desire for power, and ultimately, hopelessness which can impact anyone. 

All of these things, and more, can be triggers for one’s behavior, and in a community awash with guns, it is not surprising that using deadly force is such a common remedy. In addition to curtailing the access to, and prevalence of guns, we must invest in sound, holistic health strategies for our entire community–both before and after a shooting occurs. This includes greater access to trauma-informed and racially conscious mental health care, community-based restorative justice pathways for perpetrators of gun violence, opening and expanding more compassionate, evidence-based treatment, and working to destigmatize self-care. We have a duty to make sure all the adults and children that need services have access to this crucial healthcare.  

Some of our elected representatives would rather watch our country disintegrate into chaos than enact common sense gun reform citing dubious interpretations of the US Constitution, conspiracy theories, anti-government rhetoric, and plain old fear. But for those who truly value life, we can no longer allow fear and defeatism to be our default position. In just the last ten days, at least twenty-six families in Louisville, and counting, are wrestling with the unimaginable and that number will climb. Nowhere can be safe until the people elected to lead us, begin to make better smarter decisions about guns. 

No other developed nation in the world lives like this. We do not have to live like this. We choose to live like this and we can choose differently.

Footnotes:

1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5993413/
2. https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/record/23rs/hb326.html
3. https://everystat.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Gun-Violence-in-Kentucky.pdf
4. https://giffords.org/lawcenter/gun-laws/states/kentucky/
5. https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/12/us/kentucky-gun-laws/index.html
6. https://giffords.org/lawcenter/gun-violence-statistics/
7. https://everystat.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Gun-Violence-in-Kentucky-2.9.2021.pdf
8. https://everystat.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Gun-Violence-in-Kentucky-2.9.2021.pdf
9. https://www.americanprogress.org/article/fact-sheet-weak-gun-laws-are-driving-increases-in-violent-crime/
10. https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/12/us/kentucky-gun-laws/index.html
11. Within a “sanctuary state” law enforcement can be fined or jailed if they enforce gun policy.
12. https://www.thetrace.org/2017/11/stolen-guns-reporting-requirements/
13. https://giffords.org/lawcenter/gun-laws/policy-areas/gun-sales/waiting-periods/
14. https://www.everytown.org/solutions/extreme-risk-laws/
15. https://giffords.rg/lawcenter/gun-laws/policy-areas/background-checks/universal-background-checks/
16. https://www.bradyunited.org/act/second-amendment-sanctuaries
17. https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/mental-illness

About the Louisville Urban League
The Louisville Urban League assists African Americans and those at the margins in attaining social and economic equality and stability through direct services and advocacy. For more information, go to lul.org or follow us on Facebook, Twitter  (@louisvilleUL), or Instagram (@louisville_ul).