Kansas Passes Right to Bear Arms

Kansas State Rifle Association News Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 5, 2010

Right To Bear Arms Vote Sets A National Record!

(Bonner Springs, KS) - The citizens of Kansas voted overwhelmingly on November 2nd to insure that their Second Amendment rights are never questioned in Kansas.

Voters decided with 710,255 votes (89% of votes cast) that the Kansas Constitution should be changed to insure that every individual has the right to bear arms in Kansas. Only 91,004 persons (11% of votes cast) declared they did not want this change made.

It was a great victory and shows how important the people of Kansas believe this issue is. This was a record setting vote as no other gun rights initiative has passed with this overwhelming of a vote in the entire country.

The previous record was set in 1986 when West Virginia voters approved their Constitutional Amendment with an 83.6% approval.

Article 4 of the Kansas Constitution will now read, "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 Kansas State Rifle Association worked with the NRA and Senator Mike Petersen and several other members of the Kansas legislature to pass a resolution to provide for this new language and get it placed on the ballot for this general election.

The Kansas State Rifle Association would like to thank everyone who assisted in educating the voters about this amendment. It was a huge effort to inform voters to make sure they understood what was being done and why it needed to be done. Volunteers spent countless hours passing out bumper stickers, flyers and yard signs and explaining the issue to citizens.

Our voices have been heard loud and clear and the Second Amendment prevails in the great State of Kansas!

Beginning of a New Blog About the Constitution

To start off my blog on the U.S. Constitution, I will post a letter by the President of the Kansas Rifle Association, of which I am a member. Posted with permission.

Greetings KSRA Members!
As each day passes by I see more and more of our freedoms coming under fire. The legislative agenda in Washington seems to be directed at eroding away the rights that our Founding Fathers so diligently and wisely left for us in the form of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. I ask, for what motive are such things even being debated?

As I sift through the mountains of information that come across my desk each day and try to make sense of it, I keep looking towards those congressional leaders and asking myself why they don't seem to hear the cries of the American public. My only conclusion is that they are not listening to us because they don't care what we think. They are no longer moved by massive numbers of emails, letters or phone calls, to do the peoples will. The usual methods of communication aren't working. Most letters go unnoticed and unanswered. But for a rare few, those on the "good guy" list seem to be turning a blind eye. Few are speaking out. We matter not.

The mainstream media ignores the large picture and reports only that which is a smoke screen to divert our attention from the big picture. They are simply playing into the hands of big brother and aiding and abetting the politicians in their goal to strip from us our very foundation.

The government intrusion into our private lives has become a full scale invasion. They even want to control and regulate what I grow in my backyard garden? How dare them! They want to control my health care and decide if at what point I'm just old and resources shouldn't be wasted on me. How dare them! They want to take my hard earned money that I've worked all my life for and give it to people who didn't do the right thing and are now in trouble. How dare them! They ruined the economy and tanked our retirement funds and they're throwing gas on the fire every day making it worse and worse. How dare them! They have orchestrated an ammunition shortage as a means to backdoor gun control. How dare them! My indignation does not rest and neither should yours!

On the internet we see many news sources screaming out the truth. Lots of groups have formed to have "Tea Parties" and demonstrations all over the country. The participants are Democrats and Republicans, Independents, Libertarians and Constitutionalists. We are from all walks of life. We are angry and confused and tired of taxation without representation. We are fearful of the future because their retirement funds have vanished and there will be no money in the federal coffers to pay social security. We watch government actions feeling disenfranchised and hopeless as the government prints more and more money that is backed by nothing and devaluates our currency beyond repair. We hear of foreign countries warning us and calling for a global currency and global society and global rule.

We look at history and we see that we fought wars to win, and we did win, all in the name of freedom, democracy and sovereignty. Then something changed and not for the best. After World War 11 we started conducting so called "peace actions" and our military found themselves with one hand tied behind their backs no longer able to fight to win. We send our young and brave to foreign lands and then subject them to criminal trial for what once we would have given them a medal.

On a positive note, I'm happy to report that SCR 1611, a constitutional amendment to clarify the right to keep and bear arms as an individual right, will be on the ballot for the citizens to vote in the General Election in 2010. It passed almost unanimously in both the Kansas Senate and House. A poll was conducted by the Wichita Eagle and last I checked 87% of those voting say they will vote YES for that amendment. That's great news! When the time comes we have to make sure everyone gets to the polls and votes! We have a poor voting record at best with an average of only 54% of eligible voters going to the polls during general elections. That is shameful!

As I have talked to hundreds of folks in the routine of working on legislation, teaching classes and keeping a watchful eye on congress I have come to ]cam that many people are really uninformed and uneducated about what the Constitution and the Bill of Rights says and what the intent of the Founders were when it was written.

The Founders were very wise and to read their words today makes me feel like they had premonitions of the future. They wrote these documents for our protection because they somehow knew that we would need those protections some day. That day has certainly come.

I would like to recommend some good reading for anyone who would really like to know what the Founders wrote and what their intentions were in writing the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Following is a list to consider starting with:
The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay
The Anti-Federalist Papers Edited by Ralph Ketcham
Democracy In America by Alexis De Tocqueville
The Law by Frederic Bastiat
The Second Treatise of Government by John Locke
Common Sense And Other Writings by Thomas Paine
On Liberty by John Stuart Mill
The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith
Unintended Consequences by John Ross

I want to leave you with some words of wisdom to ponder. "On every unauthoritative exercise of power by the legislature must the people rise in rebellion or their silence be construed into a surrender of that power to them? If so, how many rebellions should we have had already?" -Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, Query 12, 1782

Please join me in an American Patriots Cry of Indignation! Let your voices be heard!

Patricia A. Stoneking President

I strongly urge all Kansas gun owners and others interested in keeping our freedoms, to join the Kansas State Rifle Association: http://www.ksraweb.net. For membership the email is: KSRAmembership@cox.net. If not, I would urge you to join the National Rifle Association or the Gun Owners of America.

Remember. The same people that are pushing abortion, a strong central government, high taxes, etc., are the same ones who would take away our Second Amendment rights, and eventually the right of free speech. They want no interference in their socialistic plans for America.