Miller discusses gun preemption laws: "No reason why the values of a county of 1,000 should be the same values imposed on a city of over 100,000"

(This article was originally published in the Louisville Courier-Journal on Sept. 28, 2021. It requires a subscription to view on the website.)

Less than five hours after a drive-by shooting killed 16-year-old Tyree Smith and wounded two other teens as they waited at a school bus stop, Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer stood at a podium inside Metro Hall to address a weary city.

Stunned and frustrated residents demanded an end to the bloodshed. Fischer promised action, saying the city would do everything in its power to prevent more tragedies. Police would find out who pulled the trigger. A team would be deployed to help heal the trauma suffered by neighborhood residents and by students and teachers at Eastern High School, where Smith was a junior. City agencies and partners would bolster community-based prevention programs designed to address the root causes of gun violence.

But one crucial piece of the solution remains out of reach, the mayor said.

The triple shooting, he said, was yet another stark reminder of the widespread availability of guns fueling the city's violence to historic heights."It's not an easy challenge," Fischer said, "especially given the limitations placed on us by state laws that ban common-sense gun measures."For decades, Kentucky law has prohibited Louisville and the commonwealth's other municipalities from passing firearms ordinances that might disrupt the many pipelines funneling deadly weapons into the wrong hands. More than 40 states have "preemptive laws" that take away local control, giving most, if not all, of the power to regulate guns to state legislatures.

"There's no necessary reason why the values of a county of 1,000 people should be the same values about guns that are imposed on a city of over 100,000 people," said Darrell Miller, a law professor and co-director of the Center for Firearms Law at Duke Law School. Read more here.