WAVE 3 TV Louisville, KY | Community activists working to eliminate gun sales in their districts

Community activists working to eliminate gun sales in their districts

By Elizabeth Donatelli

LOUISVILLE (WAVE) -- There's been talk and action about dry districts where alcohol isn't allowed, but now there is a movement for gun-dry districts. Community activists are working to get legislative support that would put restrictions on guns and selling them in high-crime areas of metro Louisville. WAVE 3's Elizabeth Donatelli investigates.

Since August 31st of this year, there have been 48 homicides in Jefferson County. In 33 of those cases, the murder weapon was a gun. The Justice Resource Center says it has a solution:  create gun-dry districts.

"The rural parts of the state, people grew-up with guns at sporting events, but when people become the event, the object of the gun violence, then you look at guns in a different way," said Rev. Louis Coleman with the Justice Resource Center.

The question whether an outright ban of guns violates freedoms guaranteed in the Constitution's Bill of Rights.

The second amendment reads: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." 

University of Louisville Law Professor Russell Weaver says it is open to interpretation of who has the right to bear arms: a militia or an individual. He continues that it was easier to ban guns 10 years ago than it is today because the current interpretation favors the individual, which would make creating gun-dry district harder.

"There have been a couple of recent cases from appellate courts, from U.S. Appellate Courts, which have suggested that there is an individual right to bear arms in the Second Amendment," Weaver said. "It's real unclear what the U.S. Supreme Court is going to do with this."

One case the Supreme Court may chose to review is to uphold a handgun ban in the nation's capitol. If it takes the case, it could lead to the high court's first direct ruling on the Second Amendment since 1939.

Local activists are also considering ways to restrict gun sales in certain high-crime areas such as 12th and Broadway, 18th and Broadway, and areas of Shelbyville instead of an all-out ban.

"It would be a basic move to say: hey, these stores, these pawn shops, these corporations cannot sell guns in this community," said Coleman.

Weaver says such a limited ban on firearms has a better chance of passing, but any legislation drafted by state lawmakers would have to work with federal restrictions already in place.

The Justice Resource Center has already spoken to several state leaders, including Rep. Rom Riner, who says he is sympathetic; however, he says in order to support the legislation there would need to be a condition that this applies only to those with criminal backgrounds. 

Rep. Riner has not yet read the proposed legislation, but says he has spoken with Coleman about it.

Community groups in Chicago are pushing similar legislation.

Online Reporter: Elizabeth Donatelli

Online Producer: Michael Dever