Rep. Maddox: KY House bill allowing students to carry guns on college campuses won’t get vote
A Republican-sponsored bill that would force public colleges and universities in Kentucky to allow many students to carry concealed guns on campus does not have the votes to pass the GOP-controlled Kentucky House of Representatives, the sponsor announced Tuesday.
House Bill 542 from Rep. Savannah Maddox, R-Dry Ridge, would have prevented public higher education institutions in Kentucky from passing any policies that bar people 21 years and older from carrying a concealed weapon on campuses. Currently, schools have the power to set these rules, and none allow guns on their campuses. The Kentucky Council on Post-Secondary Education opposed the bill.
The bill was in the House’s orders of the day on Monday and Tuesday, but was passed over both days.
After adjournment Tuesday, Maddox explained why on social media.
“Today is a sad day, indeed,” she tweeted. “Neither the democrats nor the governor can stop good legislation from passing in Kentucky with our Republican Supermajority. With that fact in mind, I feel obligated to explain the legislation and the proposed changes it underwent so that you can determine for yourself why it is that a 2nd Amendment bill failed to have the votes within the House Majority Caucus.”
Maddox outlined several changes she was willing to make, including requiring a permit to carry on campus; a carve-out for private institutions, university hospitals and events at venues with capacity for more than 1,000 spectators; a requirement for safe storage in university housing; and a carve-out for any preschool on campuses.
“After multiple days of discussion, debate, and the aforementioned changes, I was told today that members did not want to take a vote on this legislation,” she wrote.
Maddox has criticized the establishment of “gun-free zones” at post-secondary schools because these zones don’t necessarily stop school shootings. Maddox’s bill hinges on the rationale that more guns in the hands of students, not fewer, will keep campuses safer amid an increasing proliferation of school shootings. Allowing college students to carry guns also ensures that campuses are no longer hampering “the ability of law-abiding citizens to exercise their Second Amendment rights,” Maddox said.
West Virginia and Tennessee are among the latest states to pass similar measures.
Though Republicans have filed multiple bills this session to expand access to firearms in the state — Maddox has filed four — HB 542 looked, at one point, to have the most traction. The Northern Kentucky representative has filed bills to relax Kentucky’s gun laws each of the five years she has served in Frankfort. A short-lived contender in the GOP primary for governor, Maddox dropped out of the race in December.
Maddox’s proposal came to light last week when it was initially filed as a shell bill — when lawmakers file a low-stakes bill late in the session in order to swap it out for something new and often controversial at the last minute, typically to limit public input.
Maddox’s initial bill proposed replacing two verbs in the Kentucky Revised Statutes related to workforce development.
