In September 2021, I was at an Anderson County School Board meeting when, shortly before the meeting was to begin, we noticed a man with a holstered firearm on his hip. As reported at the time by Fox 56 News, school officials talked to him, he “removed the gun from the building and, according to the Anderson County News, came back in and participated in the board meeting.”
Two years later, during the 2023 General Assembly, Anderson County’s then-state senator Adrienne Southworth filed Senate Bill 31 to “repeal KRS 237.115 which interprets the application of the license to carry concealed deadly weapon statute as permitting postsecondary facilities and state and local governments to limit concealed carry in governmental buildings.”
SB 31 was assigned to the Senate Education Committee but never received a hearing. And that was the end of that.
Until now.
I recently wrote about this session’s House Bill 312 which reads, in part, that it will “authorize the Department of Kentucky State Police (KSP) to issue provisional licenses to carry concealed firearms and other deadly weapons to persons who are 18 to 20 years of age.”
Rep. Savannah Maddox, a Republican representing District 61, is the primary sponsor.
As of this writing, there are 28 total sponsors.
When Maddox presented HB 312 in the House Judiciary Committee on Jan. 21, she said this while explaining, unprompted, her yes vote on her own bill. “No aspect of this legislation changes any of the locations in which it is permissible for them to have that firearm.” (at the 11:20 mark below)
Remember that sentence.
Remember that sentence because one week later, Maddox filed another bill — House Bill 517, of which she is the primary sponsor — which reads, in part: “amend KRS 237.110 to no longer prohibit the carrying of concealed deadly weapons in schools and specify that the prohibition of carrying concealed deadly weapons in airports is limited to areas controlled by the Transportation Security Administration; make technical corrections; amend KRS 527.070 to add persons with valid licenses to carry concealed deadly weapons to the list of those permitted to possess weapons in schools.”
I typed the words “good faith argument” into my browser and, as now happens in the Year of our Lord 2026, this was the AI definition:
“A good faith argument is an honest, respectful, and sincere attempt to engage in dialogue, aiming for mutual understanding, truth, or a fair resolution rather than merely “winning”. It involves using logical, evidence-based reasoning, listening to opposing views, and avoiding manipulative tactics.”
I will suspend judgement about what is happening here with House Bills 312 and 517.
Instead, I ask you — the person reading this, the public — if you consider it a good faith argument for a lawmaker to file one bill in which they go out of their way to explain how their bill does not change something only to file ANOTHER bill a week later to make said change.
When the man carried his gun into the Anderson County School Board meeting in 2021, it was on his belt. In the open. Not concealed. We could all see it. And still you could feel the entire, crowded room tense up. It was just after the pandemic when so many of our school board meetings were standing room only and heated arguments about vaccines and masks and book bans etc. were the norm.
There is always a sheriff’s deputy present at Anderson County school board meetings. The deputy is armed.
If everyone could carry concealed, would this make the deputy’s job harder or easer?
Do these bills — HB 312 and 517 — make teachers and administrators, parents and kids, feel safer?
What about school resource officers (SROs), sheriffs and police chiefs. Does this sound safe to them?
Why do we suddenly need 18 year-olds carrying concealed at school meetings and in their classrooms, lunch rooms, and school parking lots?
Where is the good faith in any of this?
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