Guns are dangerous. The Kansas Legislature’s even more so | Opinion

The Republican legislators of Kansas have a problem.

Each year, they need to pass something to show how pro-gun they are (lest any of us forget) to demonstrate their undying fealty to the NRA and keep gun money flowing to their campaign coffers.

The problem is, they’ve already gone so far that there’s little, if any, room left for getting more and heavier weapons off store shelves and into the streets.

So this year, they’ve come up with the House Concurrent Resolution No. 5020.

The measure would amend the Kansas Constitution to establish a “natural and fundamental right” for us to wander around armed to the teeth for no particular reason.

For the record, state law already allows any Kansan who can own a gun to carry it concealed pretty much anywhere they want, without any training or permit. It’s called “constitutional carry,” and the Legislature passed it in 2015.

The more pernicious part of the proposed amendment would add a “natural and fundamental right” to the “possession and use of ammunition, firearm accessories and firearm components.”

As things stand, some kinds of ammunition and accessories are banned under federal law or regulations. But it’s a pretty fragile reed on which to balance public safety.

Remember the Las Vegas massacre back in 2017, where one angry man with a grudge against casinos killed 58 people and wounded 500 more when he opened fire on a crowded outdoor concert?

What allowed him to victimize so many so fast was a device called a “bump stock,” an accessory that can make a regular rifle fire like a machine gun.

Bump stocks are, at present, illegal under an ATF regulation. But the U.S. Supreme Court agreed two months ago to hear a case challenging that ban.

If SCOTUS overturns the ATF regulation, and H.C.R. 5020 gets added to the state Constitution, it would be practically impossible to make a state law getting them off the streets — even if some madman managed to stage an even bigger bloodbath here than the one in Vegas.

At a Capitol hearing on H.C.R. 5020 last week, the star witness was Attorney General Kris Kobach.

He always is.

He told lawmakers that the proposed amendment would elevate protection for firearms and accessories beyond what federal law protects.

We’ve been down this road before with Kobach, and it went badly.

In 2013, he was front man for the Second Amendment Protection Act, which purported to exempt firearms and accessories from federal regulation if they were made in Kansas and kept in the state.

It’s been a disaster. A gun dealer in Chanute relied on the state law and Kobach’s assurances and started making home-brewed silencers for sale.

That dealer, and a customer who bought a silencer from him, are now federal felons and narrowly escaped prison time.

So why is the Legislature listening to Kobach again on this topic, after his legal analysis was so wrong before?

It’s pretty simple. He tells Republicans what they want to hear and believe, even if it is wrong.

And speaking of being wrong, let’s save a little space here for Rep. Rebecca Schmoe, R-Ottawa.

She started out her testimony with this laugh-worthy statement: ”This amendment that we’re talking about is not partisan.” The amendment has 72 co-sponsors and 71 of them are Republicans.

But Schmoe didn’t stop there, continuing with this:

“Now, it was brought up in the press that this could be a disaster for public safety. To which I ask, would this be the same type of disaster that you predicted and didn’t happen with concealed carry, constitutional carry, 18 to 20 year olds, or removal of the fees? . . . Can any of you name the disaster we saw after any of those?”

Actually, I can.

In 2014, the last year before the Legislature passed constitutional carry, 329 people were killed by guns in Kansas. In 2021, it was 503.

If your polices get 53% more people in your state shot to death year over year, then yes, Rep. Schmoe, that is a disaster and it’s blatantly obvious you did something wrong.

So maybe you and the other 71 co-sponsors of H.C.R. 5020 should look at dialing back some of your failed policies from the past, rather than trying to cement them permanently into our state Constitution.