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House Committee Rejects Visual Acuity Requirement for Concealed Carry Permits

By Greg Holmes

        On February 22, by a vote of 8 to 6 with one member not voting, the Kentucky House Judiciary Committee rejected HB 298, Rep. Mary Lou Marzian’s legislation to prohibit visually impaired Kentuckians from obtaining permits to carry concealed firearms. 

        Prior to Thursday’s vote, Committee Chairman Gross Lindsay, Democrat of Henderson, told JeffersonReview.com that he thought such a restriction on blind Kentuckians might be justified in the same way that minimum visual acuity is required to obtain a license to operate a motor vehicle.  Asked if he recognized the Second Amendment’s guarantee of the right to keep and bear arms, contrasted with the fact that there is no such guarantee of the right to drive a car, Chairman Lindsay replied that he was “not sure.”  Although he at first appeared inclined to support the bill, Chairman Lindsay seemed genuinely surprised when he was asked whether such legislation would not subject blind Kentucky citizens to a greater threat of violent crime by making them even more attractive targets for armed criminals.  “I never thought of that before,” Lindsay said.

The debate over HB 298, with liberal Democrat politicians and various newspaper editorial writers spearheading support for the bill, highlights a real dilemma faced by the American left.  For decades, the American left—and the vast majority of the press in particular—have supported legislation granting accredited victim status to the so-called “disabled,” women, racial minorities, and others.  But like a vampire wilting before a crucifix, the left’s affection for this kind of preferential legislation dissolves in an instant when confronted with the real bugaboo that drives them to distraction, the mere possibility that some American somewhere will have the desire and the ability to defend herself or himself with a gun. 

         If Marzian’s bill had passed, Kentucky State Government would no doubt have been faced with a landmark lawsuit under the Americans with Disabilities Act or ADA, alleging flagrant discrimination against visually impaired Kentuckians.  While it would have been a delicious irony to use one weapon fashioned by the left (the ADA) to foil another favorite goal of the left (the restriction and ultimate abolition of the right of private citizens to own firearms), the real irony is that if judges and lawmakers heeded the words of the Constitution in general and the Second Amendment in particular, such dilemmas would never arise.