Welcome To The 21st Century Kansas
This story in the Kansas City Star should give everyone cause for celebration:
After years of failed efforts, vetoes and political wrangling, Kansas will join most of the nation in allowing concealed weapons permits, starting this year.
The Kansas House voted Thursday to override Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ veto of a concealed weapons bill, following a similar vote in the Senate on Wednesday. The action makes law a plan to allow citizens who pass a background check and training course to carry concealed weapons. The first applications can be filed July 1.
The House vote was 91-33, seven more votes than necessary to reject Sebelius’ veto.
“The people of Kansas have waited a long time for this,” said Sen. Phil Journey, a Haysville Republican who has worked for the bill for more than a decade, first as a citizen and then as a lawmaker.
We welcome Kansas to the twenty-first century by becoming the forty-seventh state to allow the carrying of concealed weapons in some version. Now if we can get the states of Nebraska, Illinois, and Wisconsin to recognize that right as well. Once we drag those three states into the twenty-first century, we need to start working on the ten states (California, Iowa, Delaware, Rhode Island, Massachussetts, Maryland, New York, New Jersey, and Hawaii) that restrict the right to carry in some form. Finally, we need to work on every state except Vermont that requires some sort of government permission to carry a concealed weapon. Why should I have to ask the government’s permission to exercise one of my most fundamental rights, which is the right to defend myself?
