LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Downtown Louisville was tragically home to one of the nation's first mass shootings, 33 years ago, when the term wasn't even being used yet.
Former Mayor Jerry Abramson met WHAS11's Doug Proffitt at the site of the now-closed Standard Gravure to talk about how the city moves forward after the deadly mass shooting that happened on Monday, and what hasn't changed since 1989.
"They couldn't believe that something like that would happen in this community in a workplace by a former employee," he told Proffitt.
The Standard Gravure shooting is considered to be one of the country's first mass shootings and workplace shootings.
"I was here pulling bodies out, I saw what an AK-47, assault weapons used in Vietnam, can do to a body," he said.
The mayor held EMS crews on the scene at the printing plant.
"People just scratched their heads and said, 'This is America, how could that happen?'" he said.
Joseph Wesbecker, an employee who was on disability for mental illness, had suddenly shown up with an AK-47 and other weapons; eight people were killed and 12 people were injured.
"Business factories, they were trying to come to grips with what do you do in the future when you have an employee who just wasn't making it, how do you fire them, how do you let them go, how do you make it a safe situation," he said.
In 1994, America passed an assault weapons ban, but it had a sunset provision; it was set to expire in 10 years.
And it did, in 2004.
The sunset provision infuriated Abramson.
"We had a significant decrease in the number of mass shootings and then it sunset and sales were available once again," he said. "We've had 145 mass shootings in 2023 and we're not into the middle of April!"
When asked if he had a message for the community, the "Mayor for Life" said this:
You're not a resident, you're a citizen of this community. Now more than ever, those of us who, that love our hometown, need to engage and step up. There are difficulties in this community. But to step away is allow them to fester and grow. You gotta get engaged.
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