Louisville Mayor Wants Gun Laws More Like Chicago, Less Like Kentucky

One month after saying he would not press for more gun control, Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer (D) is calling for the ability to break with the pro-gun attitude of Kentucky and enact more gun controls in the City of Louisville.

Fischer’s push comes at a time when Chicago perfectly illustrates the dangers of a city using gun control as a solution to gun crime.

According to the Courier-Journal, Fischer wants the Kentucky legislature and Governor Matt Bevin (R) to amend or do away with the state’s firearm preemption statute so cities can pass gun controls that are more stringent than those which exist at the state level.

Fischer said, “Here in Kentucky, we need to give cities and counties … the right to protect their communities. Cities and counties in Kentucky today are not allowed to pass local laws to deal with violence.”

Again, look at the Chicago example. Although the Firearm Owners Identification Card (FOID) Act of 2013 did put some constraints on Chicago that had not existed prior, the city has its own “assault weapons” ban, a “violence tax” that raises the cost of guns purchased by law-abiding citizens, and what the New York Times refers to as restrictions on handgun purchases that get as close to a ban as possible, without actually being a ban.

The Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence points out that while the FOID act changed the enforcement of the “assault weapons” ban and other restrictions for card holders anywhere in the state, it left in place “[t]he provisions of any ordinance enacted by any municipality which requires registration or imposes greater restrictions or limitations on the acquisition, possession and transfer of firearms than are imposed by [the FOID Card Act], are not invalidated or affected by this Act.”

So, is Chicago now a shining city on a hill, showing the world how more gun control results in less gun violence? Nope. Instead, NBC News just reported that the number of homicides in Chicago thus far in 2016 exceeds the number in L.A. and New York combined.

This is crucial information because Fischer is arguing for stricter gun control in Louisville on the grounds that the rest of Kentucky is largely rural and does not have to deal with issues that are common to cities. The same can be said of Chicago regarding its relationship to rural Illinois. But letting Chicago do things its own way has correlated with 2,026 shooting victims in 2016 alone, according to the Chicago Tribune. That hardly seems like a solution.

Kentucky Senate Majority Leader Damon Thayer (R-Georgetown) responded to Fischer’s push for more gun control by sending out a tweet which said, “This is not going to happen.”

AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.