Aaron Reed: Farmer's Husband, Gun Dealer, and State Senator

Caleb Brown: This is The Shelbyville Idea. I'm Caleb Brown. In this episode, I speak with 7th District State Senator Republican Aaron Reed. We talk about his background, why his wife is the real farmer in the family, his time in Frankfort so far this legislative session, gun rights in the commonwealth, and why your humble host is still prevented from owning a few backyard chickens. We spoke February 15th, 2025. Aaron Reed, State Senator from the 7th Senate district in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. This is your first term as a state senator. Tell us about yourself.

Aaron Reed: Yes, sir. Thanks for inviting me over today. I'm from right here in Shelby County. I grew up in Chestnut Grove, which is north central Shelby County. My dad was a state trooper. He moved to Kentucky in '76 and graduated from the Kentucky State Police Academy. And I was born in 1977 shortly thereafter. And I grew up, running through fields and hunting and fishing all through northern Shelby County. And went to Shelby County High school, graduated in '95 and went on to Morehead State University. And I went there on a shooting scholarship actually. I was an air rifle smallbore shooter and that got me a pretty good scholarship to go to Morehead. And I studied sociology and criminology there. And in '99, I graduated and went straight into the Navy. I actually enlisted in the Navy.

COB: So you graduated but did not try to become an officer?

AR: Well, if we got time, I'll tell you a quick story on why. So.

COB: Okay, go ahead, go ahead.

AR: It's kind of interesting. I was all over campus, constantly running or swimming at the pool, working out. It had become my religion. I'd actually was signed up to be in the Marine Corps. I had an Officer Candidate pathway. I was going to Officer Candidate School. I believe it was my sophomore summer and I got a letter shortly before I was supposed to leave saying they wanted to bump me to the next summer because they had more senior guys that were ready to go. So when they did that, it kind of ticked me off. I was ready to go. And then I discovered the Navy SEALs about that time and really dug in and decided that's what I want to do. The Marine Corps is great. My dad was a Marine and there's no prouder branch of service than the Marine Corps, and I wanted to be a part of that. However, I did discover what Navy SEALs were all about. And when I found that, I was all in. So I was running and swimming.

AR: A fellow, a classmate of mine, who technically he was a year ahead of me but he had fallen back a semester and needed an extra semester to graduate. So on my, I guess it was my senior year, early on, we connected. His name was Christian Galeski. He was actually a male cheerleader at Morehead. We didn't give him any crap for that, but soon discovered that was not a bad gig that he had. But he was in pretty good shape. And his dad was an officer in the Navy. And when he found out that I wanted to be a SEAL, he had had this, a similar dream apparently, and we connected and we started working out together. And I had already had a connection, relationship with the Navy officer, selection officer.

AR: And since Christian was about six months ahead of me or a semester ahead of me in school, I went ahead and made the connection, called him up, and the OSO came out and gave us the PT test, the swim, run, push-ups, pull-ups, all that stuff. And we took it together, kind of, and both of us maxed it out, same score. And OSO said, Congratulations, Christian, you got the slot. And that's when I found out that there's only one slot per fiscal year, which the fiscal year hadn't even happened yet. He was pre-planning, and because Christian was ahead of me in school, I had just trained my competition unknowingly. And so he got the slot.

AR: And OSO told me, like, you know what? You won't be able to reapply for this for another year. And I was already kind of upset that I didn't go to SEAL training already with a friend of mine. His name was Colin Thomas. He was on the rifle team with me for a brief semester there. And I really wanted to go, but my parents talked me into graduating, and so I graduated college, and then I enlisted.

COB: All right, fair enough.

AR: I know it's a long, long way around.

COB: So you are now, you're in your... Before we get to legislative stuff before we started recording, you were talking about you're a farmer, but really your wife is the farmer.

AR: I like to tell people I'm a farmer's husband. And it's fairly accurate. We do a lot of stuff together, but she's the daily grind on the farm. She's the one that's going out and pulling calves and pulling lambs and doing all that. She's really good at it, and she enjoys it.

COB: When you think about the regulatory environment for cows, lambs, or other, frankly, other livestock or even grown agricultural products, what stands out to you as being especially sort of nonsensical?

AR: There's a lot of regulations. We have the...

COB: Right. But in terms of some of those might make sense.

AR: That's right.

COB: Those might be reasonable to protect adjoining properties or protect from virulent communicable diseases among livestock. But in terms of stuff that just to you doesn't make sense and ought to go away, either federal or state, what jumps out at you?

AR: Well, for being a guy who has a lot of skin in the game in defending his country, I tend to look at things through a lens of freedom and liberty. And when I get into the agricultural parts of things and realize there's so much regulation, like raw milk is always, it seems to be an issue. I mean, our grandparents and great-grandparents grew up on raw milk. Yet we all are still here. We're alive. You would think that raw milk was poison and you're going to be getting some kind of disease and dying from salmonella or whatever. I just don't believe that's the case. I think there is a way that you can sell raw milk to people who are adults who know what they're buying.

COB: So that, to me, that's key is whether or not... When you're an adult.

AR: Well, you're an American as well.

COB: And, and you can make a decision about...

AR: A decision. Imagine that.

COB: I don't necessarily have a problem with being confronted with a piece of paper that says, Hey, here are, here's what the government thinks you ought to know about raw milk or certain other agricultural products. But again, if I'm an adult, it's, I should be able to decide what goes into my body.

AR: Yeah, and you would think in Kentucky we would, it wouldn't be such a big deal. I mean, we just in January of this year, our last dairy farm closed here in Kentucky. I don't know if you knew that or not.

COB: No.

AR: Yeah, we, I think we had over 300 in Shelby County. Maybe I misspoke. In Shelby County. Did I say Kentucky?

COB: Yes.

AR: Okay. So, yeah, in January the last dairy farm in Shelby County closed. And I grew up working in tobacco for Gary and Sheila Reese over in Todd's Point and they had a dairy farm and I miss those days. I mean it was definitely a really cool perspective on how much work, hard working Americans put into their livelihood. And dairy farmers, they were legit.

COB: So do you have a sense of what role, either regulation or taxes or some other, some other government imposition has played a role in that farm going under or other farms deciding to get out of that business?

AR: I'm not sure exactly why they closed up. I think it was just so much work and pressure from maybe the big dairy, the folks that sell your milk. I think it was just kind of getting too expensive to come out just for one farm. And there might have been some pressure in that regard. When there was 300 of them here, the truck would load up and just go to all the farms and pick up the milk. I think it just, logistically, it was getting too tough.

COB: Okay, so like the industry changing then perhaps.

AR: Yeah, that's my guess is not being a professional or a subject matter expert on the topic.

COB: In the legislature... We are recording this, I guess about what, halfway through the legislative session or thereabouts?

AR: Yeah, we swore in, I'm only, I've only been a senator for a little over a month now, and three weeks of that has been in a kind of a break. We came in for a week, January 7th, to the, it was a Tuesday. We swore in and then we had that Friday and we went on break for three weeks, which I liked because I was able to kind of meet with folks the whole time and get the lay of the land, learn more about the process of, with the LRC and putting bills together, things of that nature.

COB: So what has been the priority as you have seen. And we can talk about the structure and I can specifically wag my finger at you and complain about the structure of leadership and the backbenchers in the General Assembly. But what have been the clear priorities from your caucus this session?

AR: Well, the very first thing that I got to vote on was House Bill 1, bringing the income tax, the state income tax, personal income tax down from 4 to 3.5%. And it was my first yes vote. I voted on that. But I was able to give a floor speech, my very first Senate floor speech. And I got to quote the great Ron Paul when I said that spending taxes is the symptoms, but spending is the disease. So I tried to reiterate that the goal here is to get us down to zero on income tax. However, there's some folks that wanted to go straight to zero. And I'd love to do that, but I am not so sure that we could jump straight to zero without causing some serious issues on the way because we're going to have to balance things out. And as we move to more consumption tax to replace the income tax, there's going to be some bumps along the way. If we can do half a percent a year, that's great. If we can do more than that, even better. There are some options.

COB: Well, in the currently existing statute sort of makes that process automatic over time anyway, does it not? If I understand the statute as it exists with regard to the personal income tax in Kentucky, it will go away at some point if certain revenue thresholds are met, correct?

AR: Correct. That's correct.

COB: And so the General Assembly doesn't have to do anything, right? It doesn't have to. I mean, it might want to.

AR: I believe we still have to vote each time to drop it from what I understand.

COB: Okay, but that isn't... That is sort of on autopilot.

AR: Yes. There's triggers that they have to hit. I think one of the triggers is that the general fund has to be double the amount of whatever the budget is in place just in case there's some issues.

COB: Okay. So that's sort of, I suppose, on autopilot with some small intervention required by the General Assembly on an occasional basis.

AR: I believe that's the case.

COB: So, what are some of the other priorities from the General Assembly this time out?

AR: Well, priorities from leadership and priorities from new guys like me.

COB: Well, let me ask you a different question then.

AR: Yeah.

COB: What are you excited about that is kind of on the edge of consideration?

AR: I think something that's going to be big here that might be a little risque for some folks, but yet we are in Kentucky is like gun bills. I'm a big gun guy. I'm a big Second Amendment fan and I'm one of the guys that realizes and I preach to lots of folks that hunting has nothing to do with the Second Amendment. One of the things that I... I just submitted a bill two days ago. My bill is to bring the concealed carry age for Kentucky citizens from 21 to 18 years old. And surprisingly, I don't know if it's too surprising. I think that's the way it's going now is that I had 21 senators sign on as co-sponsors for it. So, out of 38 senators total, if all my co-sponsors vote for the bill, we should be fine.

COB: So I have a related question to that, right now, you have to fill out forms to the federal government.

AR: Correct.

COB: When you secure a firearm. There are, I don't know how many, I don't know, maybe 30 million Americans who use cannabis products.

AR: I know where you're going on that one.

COB: And there's a box that you have to check. This is if you followed the Hunter Biden case at all, you know that he checked that box. And that apparently has a lot to do with the charges that were brought against him. And the issue is whether or not you are a user of unlawful drugs. Now, that term isn't defined.

AR: Well, it says unlawful user of marijuana, I believe.

COB: Well, I think...

AR: It could have been adjusted. They tweak it constantly.

COB: Okay, well, but that term isn't really clear. If you smoked pot 10 years ago, are you an unlawful user of drugs? If you take a prescription drug that your wife or husband have purchased for them, but you know what it is and you're familiar with, you use it to feel better.

AR: Well, they kind of leave that up to you, the user.

COB: It's not... Well, but that's the question. Is that... We're talking about a constitutional right.

AR: Sure.

COB: And whether or not you get to exercise that constitutional right.

AR: Hinges.

COB: Is hinges on whether a federal law enforcement agency with vague wording on a specific form, they get to decide sort of what that means.

AR: Yeah, yeah. The ATF has lots of questions on that form that are kind of interesting, like, are you a fugitive from justice? [chuckle] That's one of them. Are you an illegal alien? Things of that nature. And it's like, why would you say yes if you're trying to buy firearm?

COB: Well, but so to what extent. Kentucky just recently passed a medical cannabis program. To what extent are people who need access to that or receive some sort of relief from using cannabis for epilepsy or whatever their specific condition might be, are they disenfranchised from exercising constitutional rights in Kentucky?

AR: As it's written, legally, they are.

COB: So what can be done for those people to allow them to exercise that constitutional right?

AR: Well, that's going to be in the federal realm. I don't know that in the state we can do much, but you can advocate for it. But as far as that goes, we need to to get our US Congressmen and our senators to kind of change the rules on that.

COB: Is there any energy behind that? I mean, I think, I would imagine Rand Paul and Thomas Massie are on board.

AR: Yes.

COB: With whatever change that would be.

AR: I have not had a conversation with either one regarding this topic but it is one that we probably should have soon because it's going to be an issue. It is an issue.

COB: Right. It's like, so many states have fully legalized cannabis, and it's still a Schedule 1 drug at the federal level.

AR: Yeah. And we've been interviewed by different news agencies as well that have come over to the store and over at Ops Supply. And, my guys have, they have guys come in to buy firearms, and they reek like they just stepped out of the Cheech and Chong hot box out in their truck and walked in like they're going to buy a firearm, thinking that we're not going to smell it like, look, man.

COB: Maybe they can't smell it.

AR: We can. You are literally making everyone in the store high right now. So we cannot sell you a firearm. And they get a little miffed and walked out. But, that's not uncommon, especially in our Louisville store that we used to have.

COB: Huh. So in Shelby county, we have... I've lived in Shelby County now for about, oh, gosh, four and a half years. Wow. It's hard to believe. And I've really enjoyed my time here. I met a lot of really interesting people. Moving from Louisville to Shelby county, you come to realize that almost everyone knows someone else that you know which is not like my normal...

AR: Small enough.

COB: Not my normal environment. But there are some issues here that I think I just want to get your sense of. And I talked about this with one of our city council members a while back, and that is, at about the same time that Frankfort, Kentucky, legalized backyard chickens, Shelby County made it illegal, or Shelbyville made it illegal. And that just...

AR: The city did.

COB: Yes. And that just boggles my mind.

AR: I wonder what the problem was. Did they have roosters waking everybody up? All the people that don't work, go to work.

COB: I have only suspicions. I have only suspicions about this 'cause I haven't really dug into this seriously. But my suspicion is that probably somebody got annoyed by a rooster.

AR: Yeah.

COB: And went to the city council and said, I have been annoyed by this rooster. I would like you to ban, citywide, anyone from having backyard chickens. And that seems completely disproportionate.

AR: Not even a, hey, let's just keep it to three chickens or something. Something like that.

COB: Now I could have backyard chickens if I had a clearance of two, I think, 200 feet in every direction, so a circle surrounding the coop. I thought, well, no one who owns a piece of residential property in Shelbyville has that. Almost no one. Maybe somebody does. But if I want to have backyard chickens, and I personally would like to have two or three chickens. And in these high-price days of egg prices, I think I ought to be entitled to be able to go out and get three eggs from my backyard chickens as easily as possible.

AR: I would agree. I think that's... You kind of, you ask yourself, what are people thinking? Constantly. And this is one of them. I guess there was an issue where a rooster woke someone. You never know.

COB: I don't know what it was, but that's my suspicion is that somebody discovered some annoyance and rather than dealing with the nuisance itself, decided, well, we got to get rid of this for the whole city.

AR: Yeah. I really enjoy the memes on social media where the folks with the chickens laying eggs are wearing leopard fur coats and gold chains, walking around. If I win the lottery, I won't tell nobody, but there will be.

COB: There will be signs.

AR: Yeah.

COB: A fridge full of eggs.

AR: Yeah.

COB: But I think that speaks to a larger issue, which is there are a lot of instances where people aren't necessarily violating the rights of somebody else, but they are maybe introducing an annoyance. And I don't live in an HOA neighborhood, but it seems that the city council, in many ways, and this probably true all over the country, the city council sort of is the HOA.

AR: Yeah.

COB: And that doesn't, for a whole lot of decision-making, that doesn't seem optimal to me.

AR: Yeah.

COB: So what are you focused on in the coming years in the legislature?

AR: Well, being a new senator, it's kind of, you have these ideas and then when you get there, things kind of tweak and you adjust fire. And I've learned a lot. I've drank from the fire hose and I'm trying not to soak my office, but it's pretty wet. My feet are wet in there. And this week was great. I was able to get out there and I've got some bills lined up. I've been on the floor speaking on different things. I feel like a real senator now. And one of the things that I'm going to be filing on Tuesday, because actually, Tuesday is the deadline to get our bills filed, and I've got two in the process now.

COB: Tuesday, the 18th of February. So by the time this comes out, that deadline will have passed.

AR: Already passed. And I already have these bills hopefully going to committee. But there's two bills that I've already filed and one is the Kentucky Emergency Volunteer Corps. I'm kind of piggybacking off a good friend of mine, John Hodgson, who's over in the House and his bill is House Bill 41. And my bill is House Bill 160, sorry, Senate Bill 160 on the Senate side. So Kentucky Emergency Volunteer Corps, basically the idea is that we're going to with, we have no plans on asking for any money from the state. However, I did request a fiscal note to set people's mind at ease who may or may not vote for it. But we've got some buy-in with the Kentucky Emergency management. And the idea is that each county would have the ability to form a group of volunteers who can react to a tornado or natural disaster, flooding. And one thing that we've been talking about since we were little kids is the fault line that goes up Western Kentucky. Is that the... Is it the same...

COB: New Madrid?

AR: The New Madrid, yeah, the New Madrid fault line. There we go. I can remember, as...

COB: Oh, I remember. You and I were both in eighth grade, I think at that time.

AR: It's gonna kick off.

COB: And a bunch of school systems canceled classes in December of 1990.

AR: That sounds about right. Yeah. That's when it was a big...

COB: Because this one guy said, oh, I predict that there will be a massive earthquake on this day, the New Madrid fault line. And to be clear, like, if an earthquake does occur along that fault line, it will be massive. It could be potentially devastating for 100 miles.

AR: Yeah.

COB: Yeah, I remember that. We're about the same age, so I remember that very, very well. School systems around us canceled.

AR: Yeah, yeah, that was pretty crazy. And it's still, it's starting to... I feel like it's starting to become more of coming back around again maybe.

COB: But the idea here is volunteer groups and what would they be entitled to.

AR: You got your ham radio, folks, you've got your retired veterans, you've got guys from the Bluegrass Academy who are looking for something to be a part of. And really the idea is that the county judge would have authority of his group here. And in the event of a statewide issue, the governor would have the authority to request the county judge to mobilize his volunteers in the event of an issue where they would need force multipliers. That's what they are. They're force multipliers. Some argue that, untrained folks will just get in the way, but I've countered that with, when you have many hands to lighten the load and they're free. The only thing that they're...

COB: Well, they're free and they know things the government can't possibly know.

AR: That's right. Honestly, if there was an issue, a hurricane or a... When we had a hurricane recently come through with Helene, it hit down North Carolina and west Tennessee and a little bit eastern Kentucky, but not as bad as those guys got it. And we actually talked about this down in our Senate caucus retreat that the need may be there for us to have our own type of volunteer network that can mobilize fairly quickly, and time to do it, time to mobilize is not right after the event. It's to pre-plan and prepare. Right?

COB: What prevents that now?

AR: Well, every county or every city can do that on their own. You're right. But this would just be a, there would be a governmental kind of a conduit that would fast track to have all the names on a list of those who wish to be a part of anything that might come up. So they'd, in theory could mobilize a little bit faster. They'll have minimal... There's some training options. CPR training, search and rescue type stuff. Nothing crazy. But a lot of these guys, they bring to the table skill sets that they have just from life. And it's good to have that option if we need it. And it's not a mandatory thing. It's a may set it up, not shall. And it's pretty laid back. But I think, most of the county emergency management folks are in on are very much open to this.

COB: For any children listening to this program, I need you to cover your ears momentarily. The school choice movement in Kentucky got its ass handed to it in 2024, losing nearly two to one. Now, my assessment of that. I was very disappointed, of course, because school choice is something I think that all parents ought to have access to.

AR: 100% agree.

COB: Shelby County was one of the top 10 counties for the percentage in terms of doing well to be clear, the Amendment 2 as it was called lost in all counties.

AR: Yes.

COB: But Shelby county did better than most in terms of asserting the power of parents to make those kinds of decisions without government interference. And to be clear, the taxes you pay to your local school system is interference when it comes to being able to choose a school. But we have other... There are other options available within Kentucky for families. We currently have charter school legislation that is winding its way through courts right now to decide its legitimacy as far as the state supreme court is concerned. But we also have virtual learning in the commonwealth, and that seems like it has the potential to be, for some kids, transformative.

AR: Yes. Yes. And, there's a... Is it Kentucky Virtual Academy? There's a... Is it Grover Port? Yeah, I have to look it up. There's a school in Kentucky that does this already. And we had our education committee meeting last week, and they filled it. These folks who are currently in virtual learning with their kids, they filled the room. And I walked in thinking I was in the wrong committee room because I wasn't expecting what was coming. They kind of had this illusion that the General Assembly had decided to cut their program. And we were kind of shocked at that. We didn't know that they thought that. And what happened was the Kentucky Department of Education had somewhat, they threatened or they were putting a 10% cap on it. And I guess it got a little bit... A lot of people got into virtual learning, COVID, post-COVID. There was an effort, I guess, on the Kentucky Department of Education to kind of slow that back down. But I tell you, I'm a fan of it.

AR: Especially here in Shelby County, we have Cultivate. And one of the awesome things about Cultivate is it's like a hybrid homeschool option. You're basically part of the public school system, yet you can still participate in sports and you can do all your classes at home, and then you come once or twice a week or biweekly, I believe, to meet with your actual teacher and go over things and you go back home. But one thing I really, I think is one of the best kept secrets about Cultivate is as a high school student, you can do all your basic courses online with your teacher online. Then you can go over to ATC, the Area Technology College, and you don't have any scheduling conflicts. You can take welding, nursing, man, you name it, machine and tool, diesel, all that good stuff. So that's something that was really awesome. But, I'm writing a bill that's going to prevent any capping of these type of programs because I think there's a huge need for it. And Kentucky parents will have one more school choice option that has been denied to them.

COB: Yeah. Education is something you do. It is not a place that you go.

AR: Yeah, that makes sense.

COB: It's like work. Work is a thing you do. It's not necessarily a place that you go. And anytime we can embrace something to give parents more options, it's worth full consideration.

AR: Yeah. And there's been some brainstorming on how to get school choice in some form or fashion for parents. And, I've heard another idea that... I don't know if it's possible yet, but I was... Just keep this on the down low, but one of the ideas that we just...

COB: Oh, I'm sorry, we're recording. So I'm not gonna... There's no down low here. Sorry.

[laughter]

AR: That was a joke. [laughter] But one of the ideas that I heard was, what if we can do some type of a property tax holiday if you send your kid to a private school? And I thought that was kind of interesting way to look at it. I'm not sure if we can swing that or not, but I'm definitely interested in finding out what that means and if that's something that can be done.

COB: Aaron Reed, thank you very much for coming by. I appreciate it.

AR: Thank you. Good to be here, man.

[music]

COB: Thank you to State Senator Aaron Reed for joining us. I hope you'll share this episode of the Shelbyville Idea with your friends. Subscribe to our newsletter at shelbyvilleidea.com and give us your guest suggestions, comments, criticisms, feedback, news tips, unsubstantiated rumors, and anything else you want us to know. Email us directly at shelbyvilleidea -at - icloud.com. I'm Caleb Brown. Thank you for listening.