KANSAS SAYS EVERYONE CAN CONCEAL THEIR GUNS

KANSAS GOVERNOR SIGNING GUN LAW 

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback signed a bill into law on Thursday that allows Kansas residents over the age of 21 to carry concealed weapons without any permit or training requirements, “as long as that individual is not prohibited from possessing a firearm under either federal or state law.”

“Responsible gun ownership – for protection and sport – is a right inherent in our Constitution. It is a right that Kansans hold dear and have repeatedly and overwhelmingly reaffirmed a commitment to protecting,” said in a statement on Facebook posted alongside a photo of him signing the bill.

Every town for Gun Safety expressed their disapproval on Facebook as well. “This bill will let people carry hidden, loaded guns in public with no training whatsoever, and with no permit required,” the statement read. “It’s irresponsible legislation that puts all Kansans in danger.”

The legislation passed with overwhelming support in the statehouse. One state legislator, Rep. Travis Couture-Lovelady, described gun safety training to the Kansas City Star as a “personal responsibility” and “not something the government can mandate.” He pointed out that since the state adopted permits for concealed carry weapons in 2006, “We haven’t had any of the Wild West shootouts.”

The state will still issue concealed permits in the state, but they aren’t required. Residents do still need a Kansas to carry weapons in other states or jurisdictions where they are required. At least five other states and most of Montana also do not require permits to carry concealed weapons, but all 50 states have passed laws allowing citizens to carry firearms in public.

Many pro-gun groups such as the Crime Prevention Research Center have argued that since the rise of concealed carry laws in the states, there has been a decline in violent crime. This ignores the fact that violent crime is on a general downward trend across the country, regardless of whether the states have concealed carry laws or not.

The research on whether conceal carry laws are effective has been mixed and little studied, in part because until recently there has been a ban on federal funding for this type of research. However, a study by the National Research Council found “no link” between right-to-carry concealed weapons laws and violent crime rates in the raw data. However, many point to international data as a guide. In Japan, for example, where almost all forms of gun ownership is illegal, there are single-digit shooting deaths in the country each year.

Another study released by Stanford last year took a new look at this research and did find some ties to allowing weapons without a permit and some types of violence. It was difficult to tie right-to-carry laws to violent crime, but researchers did find an estimated 8 percent increase in aggravated assault cases — and this may actually be an underestimate. Researchers described finding the effect of such laws a “vexing task.”

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TEACHERS TO JAIL FOR TEACHING "HARMFUL" MATERIALS

A lawmaker in Kansas is seeking to criminalize the distribution of “harmful” materials to minors in schools, lifting an exemption for teachers using approved materials. Advocates working against the bill worry it will have a “chilling” effect on teachers in the state.

“It’s purely a reaction to this instance of this one particular sex ed poster,” said Micah Kubic, of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas, who testified against the bill. “This poster must be the most impactful poster in the history of the poster.”

The text-only poster, displayed in Hocker Grove Middle School in Shawnee, Kansas, in 2014 was titled, “How Do People Express Their Sexual Feelings?” and included the words “hugging,” “grinding” and “anal sex.” Kubic said the bill is unnecessary. “The teacher who put that up was disciplined by the school almost immediately after that parent complained,” he said.

“There was a list of sexual acts, some of which were highly offensive,” Sen. Mary Pilcher-Cook told KMBC 9 News. Pilcher-Cook previously introduced a bill that would criminalize surrogate parenting, saying “you are creating a child purposely that you know is not going to have a biological mother.”

The bill would criminalize displaying material to minors that is “harmful,” including “any description, exhibition, presentation or representation, in whatever form, of nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement or sadomasochistic abuse when the material or performance.” The bill looks likely to pass the state Senate this week, and carries a penalty of up to six months in jail. Kansas already has a law that protects minors from “harmful” material, mainly to prevent adults from distributing pornography to minors. As it is written now, the law includes an exemption for teachers, but this bill aims to remove that exemption.

ACLU Kansas and teachers worry that the language is overly broad, and that teachers could be targeted for things that are part of a normal curriculum, including books with sexual or controversial themes like Huckleberry Finn. A lesson an anatomy, say, might be dicey for a biology teacher, or an art history class could be scrubbed because some of the content included nudes.

Marcus Baltzell, communications director at the Kansas National Education Association, warned that teachers already worry about the effect. “One person’s objection about something is now putting a blanket of silence, a blanket of censorship over an entire state. Is that what we want?”

“It makes me feel like I need to self-censor,” Baltzell, who is a certified teacher, said. “Now I have to consider anything that would have any kind of text or imagery or anything that would be remotely questionable by say one individual I can be brought up on charges for that.”

Baltzell pointed out that there are already rigorous standards in place to deal with parents who object to materials presented by teachers. “This is a solution in search of a problem,” he said.

Another bill inspired by the poster that inspired the “harmful” materials bill would require schoolchildren to “opt in” to sex ed rather than “opt out.” Baltzell, though he didn’t comment on the details of the state’s sex ed program, did note that an opt in standard is harmful. “We think that’s difficult and dangerous for the child who needs this education but doesn’t have that same active and involved parent that another student does,” he said.

According to the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, Kansas’ statewide curriculum already prescribes “a complete program of abstinence until marriage in human sexuality that is developmentally appropriate, including information about sexually transmitted diseases, especially HIV/AIDS.” Research has shown that students educated in an abstinence-only environment tend to have sex earlier and more often than students educated with more comprehensive materials.

ACLU Kansas’ Kubic pointed out that there are only three other states that currently have “opt in” requirements. “We’ll be going in the wrong direction,” he said.

Crossposted from thinkprogress

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SAM BROWNBACK, KANSAS GOVERNOR IS A SPECIAL KIND OF STUPID

 SAM BROWNBACK

In 2007, the state of Kansas was forbidden from firing state employees because of their sexual orientation or gender identity under an executive order signed by then-Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.

On Tuesday, the state’s sitting governor, Sam Brownback , abruptly rescinded this order. Before any state officials take Brownback’s action as a license to purge gay or trans workers, however, they should familiarize themselves with the Constitution and the Supreme Court’s decisions applying it in gay rights cases. If Kansas actually fires someone for being gay or trans, they are likely to find themselves on the wrong end of a federal lawsuit.

The Constitution forbids states from denying any person “the equal protection of the laws.” In the gay rights context, the Supreme Court explained most recently in its 2013 decision striking down the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), “the Constitution’s guarantee of equality ‘must at the very least mean that a bare congressional desire to harm a politically unpopular group cannot” justify disparate treatment of that group.'”

The Court’s precedents also establish that discrimination by a state official is no less offensive to the Constitution than discrimination by an act of Congress, so if a Kansas state official fires a state employee simply because they are gay, lesbian or bisexual, they violate the Constitution — regardless of whether a state has an executive order in place banning the practice. Mere anti-gay animus, divorced from another, legitimate justification for the state official’s action, cannot justify discrimination.

Yet, while the Court’s precedents indicate that state-sponsored discrimination against gay workers is unconstitutional, LGBT Kansans should be aware of two caveats to this conclusion. The first is that, while the arc of the Supreme Court’s gay rights jurisprudence has bent towards justice in recent years, gay Americans are still caught in an odd kind of constitutional limbo that creates some uncertainty regarding the scope of their rights.

Although the word “discrimination” carries negative connotations, most forms of discrimination are entirely constitutional — and rightfully so. The government may legitimately prefer job applicants who performed well in college to those with low GPAs. Or it can discriminate against people who did not graduate from law school when hiring lawyers. Or it can choose to only throw people who committed crimes into prison while treating the rest of the population differently.

No sensible legal regime bans all forms of discrimination, rather, the Constitution bars what is often described as “invidious” discrimination — discrimination against groups that have historically be subject to discrimination due to a trait that bears little relation to their “ability to perform or contribute to society.” This is why race and gender discrimination are typically forbidden by the Constitution. It is also why many courts recognize that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is largely impermissible.

The Supreme Court, however, has not yet gone so far as to hold that discrimination against gay people is subject to “heightened scrutiny” — although several lower courts have done so. This oversight creates enough uncertainty regarding the scope of gay rights under the Constitution that a minority of federal judges ruled against marriage equality even after the Supreme Court struck down DOMA. If Kansas fires an employee because they are gay, and that employee sues, the fate of that lawsuit could hinge upon whether the case is heard by a judge who is inclined to construe the Supreme Court’s gay rights cases narrowly.

The second caveat is that, while the Supreme Court handed down a number of decisions protecting gay rights, they’ve had much less to say about the rights of transgender Americans. Although the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held that “a government agent violates the Equal Protection Clause’s prohibition of sex-based discrimination when he or she fires a transgender or transsexual employee because of his or her gender non-conformity,” it is an open question whether the conservative Roberts Court will reach the same conclusion. Kansas is also located in the Tenth Circuit, and there is also no guarantee that Tenth Circuit judges will agree with the Eleventh Circuit.

Perhaps because of these two uncertainties, state-based LGBT rights groups in Kansas remain quite alarmed about what could happen to state employees who no longer enjoy the protection of Sebelius’s executive order. Equality Kansas, for example, tweeted out an admonition to reporters asking to speak to LGBT state employees — “To reporters asking us for LGBT KS State employees for you to interview: NO. They talk today, they’re fired tomorrow. Think about it. Thanks.”


Congratulations Sam, you are today's worst person in the world, enjoy asshat!


[h/t thinkprogress]

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Roger West

GUN SENSE KANSAS VERSION

Obtaining a concealed-carry permit in Kansas isn’t exactly a difficult task. A 2006 law made Kansas a “shall-issue” state, meaning that law enforcement does not have discretion to deny permits to people who meet certain qualifications; though people who want to carry concealed firearms also are required to complete a gun-safety class. A majority of the state’s senators, however, believe that it should be even easier to pack heat if you live in the Sunflower State. Twenty-six of the state’s 40 senators co-sponsored a bill eliminating the requirements to take the class and to obtain the a permit.

The bill is labeled a “constitutional carry” bill because of its supporters’ mistaken belief that a permitting requirement and similar restrictions on concealed firearms violate the Second Amendment. As the Supreme Court explained in District of Columbia v. Heller, the right to bear arms is “not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.” Nor is this conception of the Second Amendment particularly new. To the contrary, Justice Antonin Scalia explained in his majority opinion, “the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues.”

Echoing National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre’s claim that “the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” Kansas State Senate Majority Leader Terry Bruce claims that this legislation will “lead to more protection of individuals.” Empirical data, however, does not bear out this claim. A literature review by the Harvard Injury Control Research Center determined that areas with more guns have higher homicide rates, for example. Another study found that, in higher education settings “there were more gun threats at schools that allowed firearms possession than schools that prohibited students from owning guns.”

Other data shows that the premise of the NRA’s good guy/bad guy framework is flawed. In reality, mass shootings — the kind of situation where a “good guy with a gun” might be best poised to end a killer’s rampage — are quite rare. Meanwhile, according to Washington State Sociology Professor Jennifer Schwartz, “nearly half of all homicides, committed by men or women, were preceded by some sort of argument or fight.” Forty percent of male offenders and about one-third of female offenders were drinking alcohol when they committed a homicide offense.

Homicides, in other words, don’t often occur for want of a good guy with a gun. They occur much more often because two guys are arguing at a bar, and one of them happens to be armed.

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KANSAS VOTERS ARE MIRED DOWN WITH TOUGH DECISIONS

SAM BROWNBACK - KANSAS TIN FOIL HAT SOCIETY LEADER

WHICH IS WORSE, DICK TRICKLE DOWN SYNDROME OR LAP DANCE:

During his New Rules segment this Friday night, Real Time's Bill Maher took a shot at the "easily distracted" voters of Kansas, who may actually reelect their Governor Sam Brownback for another undeserved term after he wrecked the economy of their state, but the better part of his ire was reserved for the likes of Chuck Todd and Meet the Press, who allowed Grover Norquist to come on last month and attack Brownback's opponent, Paul Davis, for going to a strip club sixteen years ago.



New Rule: People in Florida now earn the right to make fun of Kansas.

Kansas needs a buddy state. A state that comes along and says "I don't think that's a good idea, Champ. I think you might hurt yourself pal". And to provide encouragement when they do good. "I elected a person not of the galactically stupid." "Good going Champ".






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Roger West

Democalypse 2014 - The Battle Hymn of the Republicans

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‘LITTLE GOTCHA AMENDMENTS’

The Kansas legislature is advancing an omnibus abortion bill that would, among other things, define life as beginning at conception in the state constitution and place unnecessary restrictions on abortion providers in the state. HB 2253 has already passed the House, and looks poised to gain enough support to sail through the Senate — but only after Republicans rejected several key amendments to soften the measure, including a provision to add exceptions for rape and incest to the state’s existing abortion restrictions. Top Republicans decried those provisions as “little gotcha amendments.”

Senators discussed the bill for more than two hours on Monday. There were several proposed amendments up for debate — a rape and incest exception, a provision ensuring that women won’t be prosecuted for using birth control even if the state officially redefines life with a “personhood” amendment, and a measure to remove HB 2253′s requirement that doctors tell women about a scientifically disputed link between abortion and breast cancer. All of them were rejected.

“These amendments are little gotcha amendments,” Senate Majority Leader Terry Bruce (R)said during the floor debate. “I’m getting a little irritated at it.”

State Sen. Mary Pilcher-Cook (R) explained she opposed the rape and incest exception because it would apply not just to HB 2253, but also to the existing abortion laws in Kansas. That means it would extend an exception in the cases of rape and incest to current state restrictions banning most abortions after 22 weeks, preventing private health insurance from covering abortion services, and requiring doctors to obtain parental consent before performing an abortion for a minor. “This language would completely undo 10 to 20 years of abortion legislation,” Pilcher-Cook said.

In fact, such an amendment wouldn’t “undo” state-level abortion restrictions at all. Exceptions in the cases of rape, incest, and preserving the life of the woman are still extremely narrow, and don’t change the fact that restrictions on reproductive care are still imposed on the majority of women. Those small exemptions have become somewhat of a national standard. The federal government, 32 states, and the District of Columbia all offer exceptions in the cases of life endangerment, rape, or incest in their bans on public funding for abortion. Americans also overwhelmingly support abortion access for victims of rape and incest.

But for Kansas Republicans, it’s too politically contentious to ensure, for instance, that a minor who has been sexually abused by a family member doesn’t have to seek parental consent to terminate a resulting pregnancy. “This is political hijinks,” Pilcher-Cook said. “We should be focused on the bill instead of trying to make political points.”

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