LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WHAS11) – Hate crimes are on the rise according to a new report released by the FBI.
According to that review, hate crimes spiked by nearly 17 percent in 2017 and nearly 8,500 offenses were reported to the agency last year.
The gun debate remains center stage.
Can regulating guns stop mass shootings?
Governor Matt Bevin says no, there is a bigger problem.
Bevin appeared on 840 WHAS conservative talk show host Leland Conway’s show and said new gun laws aren’t going to stop the violence but instead said we need to look at America’s “culture of death” in the media.
“When a culture is surrounded by, inundated by, rewards things that celebrate death, whether it is zombies in television shows, the number of abortions that we indiscriminately think is just okay,” he said. “These are drips, drips, drips on the stones of the psyches of young generations that are growing up in a society that increasingly says this is normal and okay”.
Bevin also talked to 840 WHAS host Terry Meiners about his battle with Louisville's only abortion clinic in federal court.
An attorney for the ACLU says the law would essentially ban abortions for women in their second trimester.
But Bevin's attorney argues the law does not create a "substantial obstacle" for women seeking abortions.
“What we have said is here in Kentucky we don't believe you should be allowed to dismember a living child in the process of killing it. We're not saying you can't have abortions, although I would love to see that's the case too, I really would. But the reality is that's not what this law is about. This literally says while that child is alive you cannot remove its limbs in the process of removing it from the womb.”
The law Bevin is referring to bans a method of abortion known as "dilation and evacuation" generally performed later in a pregnancy.
The law, signed into law in April by Governor Bevin, has been suspended while the legal challenge is pending.
The trial being held in Louisville is expected to last through the week.