Kansas Governor Signs Bill Nullifying Gun Control

Even before the vote on new federal gun laws was moved up from April 18 to April 17, Kansas Governor Sam Brownback had put a protection for Kansans into place by signing a bill that nullifies new federal gun control within the borders of Kansas. 

According to “The Second Amendment Protection Act,” as the bill is called, the 2nd Amendment is locked in as understood in 1861–and any law that would have been viewed as a violation of the 2nd Amendment in that year will be viewed as a violation in 2013.

Moreover, such a law is then considered “null, void, and unenforceable in the state of Kansas.”

The Second Amendment of the United States reserves to the people, individually, the right to keep and bear arms as that right was understood at the time Kansas was admitted to statehood in 1861, and the guaranty of that right is a matter of contract between the state and people of Kansas and the United States as of the time the compact with the United States was adopted and agreed upon by Kansas in 1859 and the United States in 1861.

The language and act of nullification goes back to “The Nullification Crisis” in the early 1830s, when South Carolina told the federal government the ultimate arbiter of what is and isn’t constitutional is the people. The state argued that the people are clearly identified with the state in which they live, per the 10th Amendment of the constitution.

The language and appeal to a compact between a state and the federal government goes back to Thomas Jefferson’s writings in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions. There he argued that states form a compact with the federal government whereby they delegate powers to the federal government but are at liberty to recall those powers if the federal government abuses them. 

Concerning guns and gun laws, Kansas is nullifying future laws and recalling the power it had granted to the government in this area because it believes the government has been abusing the people’s rights in regards the 2nd Amendment.