Kansas lawmakers OK bill to void local gun rules

[MindMover]

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas legislators gave final approval Saturday to a bill that would nullify city and county gun restrictions and ensure that it's legal across the state to openly carry firearms, a measure the National Rifle Association sees as a nationwide model for stripping local officials of their gun-regulating power.

The House approved the legislation, 102-19, a day after the Senate passed it, 37-2. The measure goes next to Republican Gov. Sam Brownback. He hasn't said whether he'll sign it, but he's a strong supporter of gun rights and has signed other measures backed by the NRA and the Kansas State Rifle Association.

Kansas law doesn't expressly forbid the open carrying of firearms, and the attorney general's office has in the past told local officials that some restrictions are allowed. The Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kan., has prohibited the practice, but the bill would sweep any such ban away, except to allow cities and counties to prevent openly carried weapons inside public buildings.

The measure also would prevent cities and counties from enacting restrictions on the sale of firearms and ammunition, or imposing rules on how guns must be stored and transported. Existing ordinances would be void, and local governments could not use tax dollars for gun buy-back programs.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/04/05/kansas-guns-rights-nra/7371793/

I think the gunners want to go back to the days of the OK corral ...

[upaloopa]

1. The only sanity here is that most of us wouldn't openly carry a gun

[gejohnston]

5. It never was customary, even in the west in the 19th century.

It didn't have anything to do with "sanity" or anything else. It just wasn't, and still isn't. It is probably more common in Bulgaria.

[deathrind]

2. Even Wyatt Earp knew...

That this was a bad idea...

[gejohnston]

4. Actually, it wasn't his idea

it was the town council. His job was simply to enforce it. Reading the ordnance, it was legal as long as the weapon, including knives, was in your hand at the time. Of course, it was selectively enforced.

[gejohnston]

3. Actually not,

the law is quite common. Uniform laws across the state makes more sense today. These laws were written when it took two days to drive from one county to the next instead of being able to go through several counties within a day. Making people "paper criminals" because they have no way of knowing how a gun is supposed to be secured in the car trunk, and this is what kind of laws this is talking about, does nothing for public safety and are rarely logical and rational.
There is no such thing as a buy back because the governments never owned the guns to begin with. They make nice photo ops and theater, but are quite frankly, stupid.
While open carry is legal in most states, and always has been, it isn't customary. The bans that are in place were not put there by liberals who care about a better society. California's 1967 ban was because of the Black Panthers kept racist California cops honest. Florida banned it in 1893 because some white people didn't like African American migrant workers being armed, since it was common for them to do so. Texas banned it during reconstruction.

[pipoman]

6. Preemption

It is a common practice in law...Both federal preemption and state preemption are often enacted to stop patchwork of legality. 

Oh, most of Kansas gun laws were already preempted. Open carry has been legal in all but Shawnee, Douglas, Johnson, and Sedgwick (And maybe Leavenworth and Wyandotte) for as long as I've lived here. Every year there are a few people who didn't know that it was prohibited in those counties who are arrested. I see nothing wrong with preemption of these laws other than there are certainly more urgent and important issues which could use the attention of law makers.

[ManiacJoe]

7. State preemption for uniform laws is a good thing.

WA state removed the gun law preemption for a few years many years ago. After the cities and counties made a mess of things, which resulted in zero arrests, the state put the preemption back in place for the sanity of the uniformity.

[ileus]

8. Ditching preemption helps keep citizens from unwillingly becoming criminals.

[Logical]

9. I have no issue with this but I do think Open Carry causes more trouble than it is worth......

Conceal Carry is enough for me. Open Carry is just showing off.

But Kansas has much more important issues than this to address.

Kansas is so Right now it is unbelievable.