Former Kentucky superintendent charged with gun on school property has case dismissed

A judge has dismissed a criminal charge against a former Kentucky school superintendent accused of carrying a pistol on school property.

The case started in February 2023 after John Gunn, the superintendent in McCreary County, and the board of education worked out an agreement for him to resign.

Gunn went to the board of education office just after 6 a.m. the next morning to pick up personal items, but his access card had been deactivated and he couldn’t get in.

Authorities charged that when he went to the office, he had a .45-caliber pistol.

There were no students at schools nearby at the time, and there were no employees in the office.

A school resource officer arrested Gunn when he went back to the office later that day. He did not have a gun at the time.

With some exceptions, such as for police officers and ROTC members, Kentucky law generally bars carrying a firearm at public and private elementary and high schools.

The crime is a Class D felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

Gunn’s attorney, David S. Hoskins, argued that the law was an unconstitutional infringement on Gunn’s right to bear arms under the Second Amendment.

Hoskins cited a 2022 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court set out a new standard for deciding the legality of gun restrictions, commonly called the Bruen case.

The high court said that gun laws must be assessed on whether they are consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.

Hoskins argued there was no historical analogue regarding regulating carrying guns on school property — as opposed to schools themselves — and as a result Kentucky’s prohibition on carrying guns as it was applied to Gunn was unconstitutional.

The prosecutor, Commonwealth’s Attorney Ronnie Bowling, argued in response that the Supreme Court decision would still allow barring possession of guns in sensitive places such as schools.

Gunn’s act of carrying a gun at the school-board office “is not a traditional, historical recognized right” at the time the Second Amendment was ratified, Bowling said.

However, Circuit Judge Dan Ballou, citing the Supreme Court case, dismissed the charge against Gunn.

Ballou ruled the prosecution had not shown “that the Nation’s historical tradition of regulating the possession of firearms extends to an individual carrying a firearm on property not utilized as a school, during a time when neither students nor school employees were present, and with no other alleged criminal acts being committed, regardless of the ownership of the property at issue.”

Hoskins said he and Gunn were happy with the decision.

“I think the very specific facts of this case called for this ruling,” Hoskins said.