Author
Teri Carter
Taking stock one year after a bank staff meeting was turned into a bloodbath
April 10 marks one year since a mentally unstable 25-year-old walked into Old National Bank in Louisville and shot five people to death — Thomas Elliott, James Tutt Jr., Juliana Farmer, Joshua Barrick, Deana Eckert — and injured eight, including Nickolas Wilt, a young police officer who was shot in the head and miraculously survived. […]
What’s a girl to think?
A week before the end of this regular session, the Senate Committee on Veterans, Military Affairs, and Public Protection — commonly known as VMAPP and chaired by Sen. Rick Girdler — met for 21 minutes. I attended this meeting. After the prayer, pledge of allegiance and roll call, Sen. Gex Williams kindly introduced a little […]
Kentucky supermajority can do anything it wants, so why not protect kids from gun violence?
Let’s start here: Republicans have an overwhelming supermajority in the Kentucky legislature. We also have a record surplus. If a Republican-sponsored bill is a priority, if leadership wants it, there is nothing to stop them from fully funding and passing that bill. In 2019, the year after the deadly Marshall County High School shooting, our […]
Rush is on to arm volunteer ‘guardians’ in schools while a bill that could protect kids languishes
According to research gathered by Sandy Hook Promise, “An estimated 4.6 million American children live in a home where at least one gun is kept loaded and unlocked. These improperly stored weapons have contributed to school shootings, suicides and the deaths of family members, including infants and toddlers.” Senate Bill 56 — sponsored by Sen. […]
Here’s what hurts the most
On Feb. 9, Sen. Matthew Deneen, R-Hardin, sent out a press release that began, “It’s an unfortunate time here in the commonwealth as we must address a pressing issue, and that is gun violence …” Yes! I wanted to scream. Finally! But Deneen was not talking about the epidemic of gun violence that ends hundreds […]
GOP supermajority: Silly, unserious, unconcerned by Kentuckians’ real problems
On Jan. 31, I began my day reading a story that opened with a stunning sentence. “Some residents of a county in Kentucky are going on two weeks without running water, forcing them to use public toilets and catch rainwater to bathe.” As I was reading this news, a 7:31 a.m. tweet popped up from […]
‘Having a conversation is not an act of aggression.’ Especially when lives are at stake.
Kentucky’s 2024 regular session opened with lawmakers insisting leadership consider rules changes to make the legislative process more transparent. Rep. Savannah Maddox, R-Dry Ridge, was one of those lawmakers, saying, “Proposing rules changes, having a discussion in this body, having a conversation, is not an act of aggression.” She was right. And yet this is […]
Kentucky lawmakers should heed lesson from Louisville mass shooting
The day before he killed five people and injured several others, the Old National Bank shooter wrote, “OH MY GOD THIS IS SO EASY. Seriously, I knew it would be doable but this is ridiculous. Walked in and bought a gun, 4 mags, and 120 rounds for $700. Got some glasses and earplugs…” On April […]
Selling fear for profit
As we watched the aftermath of the mass shooting in Maine last week and listened to vacuous comments from newly-elected U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, my mind kept turning over the title of a famous Roxane Gay essay, “No one is coming to save us,” like a dystopian mantra. “The problem is the human heart, […]
Would Daniel Cameron really have rolled the dice with Kentuckians lives?
A month ago, on Sept. 17, I had a terrifying car accident in southern Illinois.? It was a sunny, Sunday afternoon. I was returning home to Kentucky following my 40-year high school reunion in Missouri. I was alone. And I was driving about 50 mph when a woman made an illegal turn in front of […]
This ain’t ‘Gunsmoke.’ The victims of gun violence, their families and friends are real.
With a month to go before Election Day, GOP attorney general candidate Russell Coleman launched his first ad titled “Lawman.” It opens with an image of Coleman looking menacing on a shooting range: dark sunglasses, black ear protection, black vest, black handgun firing. While the attorney general is often referred to as a state’s top […]
Prevention is conspicuously absent from Louisville Republicans’ ‘Safer Kentucky’ plan
After watching the Sept. 26 news conference held by Louisville House Republicans to introduce their proposed 18-point Safer Kentucky Act, I pulled out my scribbled, contemporaneous notes from a Sept. 19 meeting of the legislature’s Task Force on School and Campus Safety.? An hour into that meeting, I wrote: “These meetings are a way for […]