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By Dean Weingarten

When liberal fascists say that they have the right to regulate something, they mean they have the power to ban it. This has been shown over and over again in the field of firearms legislation.  The people of Texas removed the reconstruction era governor by force after he refused to abide by election results. Then, in the new state constitution of 1876 they restored the right to keep and bear arms that had been gutted by the carpet bagger constitution of 1869. Unfortunately, they left in a legislative loophole . . .

Every citizen shall have the right to keep and bear arms in the lawful defence of himself or the State; but the Legislature shall have power by law to regulate the wearing of arms, with a view to prevent crime.

An ordinary person would think that the legislature would have the authority to say that pistols had to be carried in holsters, or perhaps that they had to be carried openly. But the legislature elected after the constitutional convention simply kept in place the carpetbagger law that prevented the open carry of pistols or knives nearly everywhere. It made it easy to disarm freed slaves…or just about anyone else a local government wanted to.

In Mississippi, a ban on the carrying of concealed weapons was interpreted to mean a ban on all carrying of weapons. Now, in Kansas, the legislature recently removed a ban on the open carry of handguns, but left in place a clause that allows local governments to regulate the manner of openly carry, as quoted below:

(a) No city or county shall adopt any ordinance, resolution or regulation, and no agent of any city or county shall take any administrative action, governing the purchase, transfer, ownership, storage or transporting of firearms or ammunition, or any component or combination thereof. Except as provided in subsection (b) of this section and subsection (b) of K.S.A. 75-7c10, and amendments thereto, any such ordinance, resolution or regulation adopted prior to the effective date of this 2007 act shall be null and void.

(b) Nothing in this section shall: … (2) prohibit a city or county from regulating the manner of openly carrying a loaded firearm on one’s person; or in the immediate control of a person, not licensed or recognized under the personal and family protection act while on property open to the public.

For some reason, the Kansas City suburb of Prairie Village doesn’t believe that Kansas’s law applies to their regulation:

The City has received a lawsuit challenging the sections of the City Code that prohibit the open carry of loaded firearms in public places. The lawsuit alleges that the City Code is in conflict with the Kansas Constitution and a Kansas Statute. The Mayor and City Council do not believe that the City Code violates the Kansas Constitution or the Kansas Statutes. 

The City prohibits the open carry of loaded firearms in public places such as parks, streets, sidewalks and city buildings. The City does not restrict open carry of legal firearms on private property such as a person’s residence or fixed place of business. The restrictions specific to open carry do not apply to any person carrying a concealed weapon as authorized by Kansas Statutes.

I don’t believe that the mayor and city council of the Prairie Village are actually illiterate. They’re simply inebriated with power and are unwilling to abide by the state law as it’s written. It’s not totally unreasonable for them to believe so, as they have been able to abrogate the state and federal constitutions for decades without any serious repercussions. It was the Kansas Supreme Court, after all, that initiated the “progressive” mythology that the Second Amendment was only a “collective right” in their 1905 decision Salina v. Blaksley.

The Prairie Village regulations will not likely stand. Two other cites, Overland Park, and Lenexa, have already changed their local laws to conform with Kansas state law and the Constitution.

What this demonstrates is that the battle to maintain liberties is continual and any reduction of those liberties will be used as a base to further reduce them. If Kansans had removed those Supreme Court justices in 1906 when they created the “collective right” myth out of whole cloth, our history would be considerably different.

Many have noted that the loss of liberty comes in small, almost undetectable steps. So-called progressives have used this to their advantage for decades. Now is the time to roll back those steps and to restore Constitutional liberties, city by city, state by state, and finally, through repeal of federal legislation.

©2013 Dean Weingarten publishes the Gun Watch blog: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.

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28 COMMENTS

  1. Law says :”Government Can in No Way Shape Or Form Regulate any aspect relating To Firearms”

    Liberal says: “We dissolve our Government and now have a commune, and our commune has banned firearms .”

    The best we can achieve is to contain the beast as best as possible.

  2. Tar & feathers in ye olde towne square becomes more and more viable at all levels with each passing day. Hear ye, hear ye!!!

  3. Hmm perhaps it’s time to push for better education like the fact that the American Revolution started over gun rights ( even though taxes and foreign opression were still a cause as well maybe even include the fact that in the beginning many hoped that it would not become an all out war as many still felt they were British citizens) and follow with examples of armed revolutions carried out by those seeking freedom ever since.

    • Yeah well the Common Core Curriculum advocates blind acceptance of Government edicts. Read the materials and get mad. Makes dumb look like genius.

      • Sadly you’re right. Education should’ve never came under government control, it’s too easy then for the government to pick and choose what children are taught. The prime example is the number of kids that think the Constitution is just an outdated and dead document rather than a contract between the governing and the governed.

        • The Constitution isn’t a contract, its a statement of God-given rights. God gave us the rights in the Constitution, and the Constitution is just the place where we wrote our rights down.

        • It also outlines the powers granted each branch of the federal government and the individual states by the governed people much like an enlistment contract tells recruits you are allowed this and this but the Army owns you for now.

    • The Battles of Lexington and Concord started directly because the British regulars tried to disarm and detain militiamen, but the actual Revolution started over a whole number of rights infractions.

      Check the Declaration of Independence, its basically a laundry list of complaints against the Crown.

      • Yes many were content to let it end at the declaration until the events at Lexington and Concorde. Interestingly the bloodshed at Lexington only came first due to a young British lieutenant making a wrong turn when he saw armed men. Guess lieutenants never change.

        • You might want to check your dates. Lexington and Concord took place in 1775, and the Declaration of Independence was written in 1776.

  4. Tennessee constitution mirrors the Texas constitution. Tennessee bans the carry of all firearms including rifles and antiques, except if one is a cop, hunter, or has a handgun carry permit.
    The tennessee law has been held by the tn courts to be valid.

  5. i am from kansas city KS. this sounds lke something that all the RINOs (most of which subscribe to the whole “guns kill people” argument instead of the “people kill people” argument) that inhibit that douche magnet of a city would do. same with overland park and lenexa. i cant stand johnson county KS and all of uppity mornons that live there. i know i just made a broad statement about a lot of people and i know a lot of people from there that arent how i described, but its a common sterotype here that gets proved way too often. everyone here would laugh their asses off at the local media and how they portray all of these challenges. the biggest was the one in overland park, who declared open carry okay, but then everyone made a dash to put up the free fire zone posters as if it was going to stop a bad guy. one of the local news stations interviewed some guy from a anti gun place who was all proud about those signs and how those of us who legally carried a gun cant carry there or else. it was so funny cause the moron was so happy about that, but you could tell he knew it wouldnt stop a crazed gunman. so it was like he was happy he made it possible for a nutjob to succeed and no one could stop it.

  6. Solution to this shit is simple: have the legislature strip politicians of personal immunity and pass a law denying insurance and/or govt funds to pay for their defense AFTER it is determined they are violating state law. Trust me – they only pull this crap b/c they know someone else is picking up the tab. No immunity from suits and no defense costs = no politicians willing to thumb their nose at the constitution

  7. I don’t know what the Kansas State Constitution says but there is a fairly simple way that Kansans can give Prairie Village a big middle finger. All they have to do is assemble dozens of people with concealed carry licenses and start walking around carrying openly in Prairie Village.

    At that point either Prairie Village can detain everyone to ask for their concealed carry license, or they detain no one. If they detain everyone, that opens up a huge can of worms that Prairie Village will wish they had left alone. If they detain no one, then they are not enforcing the law.

    • I think that is a good idea. However, like most good ideas, it is the execution that is difficult. If I lived within a hundred miles of Prairie Village I would likely be working on it.

  8. Tell Shannon Watts(TM) there is a bloody shirt to wave and you will attract about 9 people to protest in favor of restrictions and about 300 to counter-protest against.

  9. I live in Lenexa, and have grown up in and around the Overland Park/Greater Kansas CIty area for most of my adult life.

    Overland Park and Lenexa changed the ordnance not out of the goodness of their hearts, but because pressure from citizens’ demanded it. Even the democratic/liberal people in these towns pretty much saw that there was no issue with OC/CC in this area, so it passed.

    You see a good mix of different individuals here, from white to black, hispanic to asian, and quite a lot of gun shops and different ffls in the area, along with some decent indoor ranges very close buy.

    The one standout in this area, is the asinine nonsense that is prairie village. The hard left individuals have all but taken over that area, and are forcing their beliefs on everyone else. It is an “upper class” area of Johnson County, in the same vein as Leawood. Both cities are pretty much full of nothing but white collar criminals, who like their idea of a police state.

    Im glad to live in Johnson County, but those two cities are a cancer on the area. They live in their safe little towns with landrovers and mercedes benz’s, and are oblivious to the happenings around them.

    Oh well.

  10. Part of the blame lies with the state legislature. What does regulating the “manner” of open carry even mean? Open carry is open carry. The “manner” loophole was bad drafting and left a loophole.

    • Manner of carry can mean anything they want it to mean. In Wichita’s case, it means you can’t openly carry a loaded firearm at all. If you openly carry, the firearm must be unloaded (no mag, no round chambered). It is permissible to carry a loaded mag separately. This ordinance does not apply to kansas CCW holders.

      It’s a de facto ban on open carry, since 1) it makes the firearm useless at a moment’s notice anyway, so nobody actually bothers, thus 2) people aren’t used to seeing it, people get twitchy when they do see it, so the local po-po get’s called in. The carrier gets a face full of concrete first and questions later.

  11. When liberal fascists say that they have the right to regulate something, they mean they have the power to ban it.

    Yes, and just think of what will happen when the communist Nazis join forces with these liberal fascists! That will be really bad. Yet it won’t get super bad until the Hamas Zionists arrive!

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