CCRKBA TO GOV. BESHEAR: HB 312 VETO AN INSULT TO YOUNG ADULTS

BELLEVUE, WA – Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear’s veto of House Bill 312 was a deplorable act of sexism which leaves young women unarmed and vulnerable to brutal attack, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms declared.

“While he claims to be a ‘different kind of Democrat,’ Gov. Beshear has revealed himself to be just one more anti-gun-rights politician adhering to the party’s increasingly far-left dogma,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “He has shown his true colors by preventing a provisional license for 18- to 20-year-olds to carry a concealed handgun in public, amounting to a direct attack on young women, especially young women of color, who are frequently in need of protection. The late, great First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who was one of the first women in New York State to have a full carry license, is probably spinning in her grave.

“We’ve all heard the excuses from Democrats for opposing legal carry for self-defense by young adults,” he continued, “and it all translates to social bigotry against young Black and Latino males, to whom they often refer as being ‘too impulsive’ to exercise their Second Amendment rights. How many of these same young Americans join the military, start businesses, enter into contracts, get married and start families? The idea that such citizens can do all of these things, yet be denied the means by which to protect themselves, by the stroke of a governor’s pen, is disgusting.

“The media is playing this veto up as a way Beshear honors a friend who was killed in the Old National Bank shooting in 2023,” Gottlieb noted, “but that’s nonsense. The killer in that outrage was 25 years old, and he left an appalling manifesto explaining his rampage as an act against gun violence, and Beshear knows it. He’s allowing the actions of a dead lunatic to guide policy regarding the rights of responsible young adults, and especially young, vulnerable women.

“The General Assembly should make short work of this veto by overriding it at its session next week,” Gottlieb suggested. “Politicians such as Gov. Beshear like to pay lip service to young adults in order to get their votes, but as we just witnessed, it’s all a façade.”