Seward County, Kansas Passes 2nd Amendment Preservation Resolution

The Kansas 2nd Amendment Protection Act, now signed into law by Governor Brownback, is one of the strongest in the country to defend the right to keep and bear arms! However, the struggle supporting the right to keep and bear arms is far from over.

The new law states that “Any act, law, treaty, order, rule or regulation of the government of the United States which violates the second amendment to the constitution of the United States is null, void and unenforceable in the state of Kansas.”

What’s most important is what is defined by “the second amendment to the constitution of the United States.”  The bill clarifies:

“The second amendment to the constitution of the United States reserves to the people, individually, the right to keep and bear arms as that right was understood at the time that 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 that the compact with the United States was agreed upon and adopted by Kansas in 1859 and the United States in 1861.”

Based off this text, the state of Kansas is not allowed to participate in any federal gun control measures that restrict the individual right to keep and bear arms as understood in 1861.    As Judge Andrew Napolitano has said recently, such widespread noncompliance will make federal gun control measures “nearly impossible to enforce.”  (video here)

On Monday, the Seward County Board of Commissioners passed a resolution in support of the new Kansas law.  The unanimous vote approved language which would require the county to stand down on enforcement of federal gun control measures that are banned under the new 2nd Amendment Protection Act.

The resolutions reads, in part:

No agency of the Board of County Commissioners of Seward County, Kansas, or person in the employ of Seward County, Kansas shall enforce, provide material support for, or participate in any way in the enforcement of any act, law, treaty, order, rule or regulation of the government of the United States regarding personal firearms, firearm accessories, or ammunition with the boundaries of Seward County; that the State determines is unconstitutional.

Since the 2nd Amendment Protection Act already made law that the state considers any federal firearms laws that would not have been accepted as constitutional in 1861 to be unconstitutional, the Board of Commissioners already have their answer.  That’s all of them on the books today.

Local Second Amendment advocate Larry Phillips explained the resolution to the commission and the crowd on hand.

“Essentially, what this resolution does is it ties the people and the county to Senate Bill 102,” he said. “We feel that this is important for several reasons.”

Phillips then talked about Holder’s letter to Brownback, stating the attorney general is threatening action against the state should it choose to enforce the act.

“Holder wrote, ‘In purporting to override federal law and to criminalize the official acts of federal officers, S.B. 102 directly conflicts with federal law and is therefore unconstitutional,’” Phillips said.

Phillips then stated that Kansas is not looking to criminalize the exercise of “constitutional federal responsibilities,” but rather what the state has determined as unconstitutional.

“No matter how much Eric Holder might believe it to be otherwise, his view is obviously not universal, especially in Kansas,” he said.

While the resolution is non-binding, it’s a good first step to move the county towards doing what’s necessary in support of the 2nd amendment.  The next step would be to pass a binding local ordinance requiring a refusal to enforce federal gun control.

Model language for the local ordinance is available here: http://tenthamendmentcenter.com/kansaslocal

2nd Amendment Preservation Resolution Passed Unanimously by Seward County, Kansas by Tenth Amendment Center