Kansans to vote on constitutional protection for gun rights

April 2, 4:16 AMSt. Louis Gun Rights ExaminerKurt Hofmann

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    Kansas state flag

Both houses of the Kansas legislature have overwhelmingly passed a resolution that will give the people of Kansas the opportunity to vote explicit protection for the individual's right to keep and bear arms into the state constitution.

A proposed amendment to the Kansas Constitution guaranteeing an individual right to own a firearm will go before voters next year.

The House adopted a resolution containing the proposed change on a 116-9 vote Wednesday — well above the required two-thirds majority. The Senate adopted it Tuesday, 39-1.

The Kansas constitution already contains a provision that protects the right to keep and bear arms, but the protection it provides for gun owners is incomplete. 

If approved by voters, the measure would replace the phrase “the people have the right to bear arms for their defense and security” with “a person has the right to keep and bear arms for the defense of self, family, home and state, for lawful hunting and recreational use, and for any other lawful purpose.”

The most significant difference is the change from "the people" to "a person."  This shouldn't be necessary--probably no other right that is designated as being "of the people" could ever be interpreted as being a power of the government.  With the right to keep and bear arms, though, far too few government officials are able to resist the temptation to try to usurp that right, by re-framing it as a right of militias--state sanctioned militias.

That, in fact, is exactly what happened in a Kansas court decision in 1905.

The Kansas case in question involved a man named James Blaksley, who was convicted of carrying a "revolving pistol in the city of Salina while under the influence of intoxicating liquor," according to judicial records.

Blaksley asserted that his constitutional rights to keep and bear arms were being violated. But Kansas justices rejected his argument on the grounds that the right to bear arms was a collective right, reserved for militias.

I do not endorse, by the way, the practice of being armed while intoxicated.  The problem is the "collective rights" interpretation of the Fourth Amendment to the Kansas Bill of Rights.

The one Kansas state senator who voted against the resolution claims, in an apparent effort to make Orwell's Big Brother proud, to "support" the individual's right to keep and bear arms.

Only Sen. David Haley, D-Kansas City, voted in opposition to the constitutional amendment Tuesday.

He said that while he supports an individual right to gun ownership, he feared the issue could dominate the general election and hurt the chances of candidates who might favor gun control.

What's so bad about something that might "hurt the chances of candidates" who refuse to uphold the Constitutionally guaranteed, fundamental human right of the individual to keep and bear arms?

Some might argue that with the Supreme Court's Heller decision having made Constitutional protection of the individual's right to keep and bear arms a settled point of law, the Kansas endeavor is redundant.  Unless and until the Second Amendment becomes incorporated against the states, though, it will have no power over state and local governments.  While many expect the Chicago gun rights case to change that, it hasn't happened yet, and may never do so.  Besides, the Heller decision came with enough qualifiers and caveats that the amount of protection it provides is open to question.

Scott Vogel, of the rabidly anti-gun (and badly misnamed) "Freedom States Alliance," does not approve of the resolution.

Scott Vogel, spokesman for Freedom States Alliance, called the fear that the courts or the current presidential administration might take away people’s guns “a phantom issue” and said lawmakers would have been better off focusing on more pressing issues.

The alliance works with grassroots organizations across the country to prevent gun violence.

“There is no wisdom that somehow people are not going to be able to get a gun. I mean, this is America,” Vogel said.

Oddly enough, just as Vogel is busily assuring Americans that no one is going to try to confiscate their guns, his organization lobbies for just that.

“Little is being done to address the elephant in the room: the 280 million guns already in circulation and how to reduce this staggering number,” said Sally Slovenski, Executive Director of Freedom States Alliance.

Obviously, the only way to "reduce this 'staggering' number" is to confiscate a bunch of them--Bill of Rights or no Bill of Rights.  There are two ways to thwart such efforts.  The first is through legislative and judicial means, like the resolution passed in Kansas.  Those who oppose an armed citizenry had better hope Americans are never forced to resort to the second one.