Gov. Brownback signs bill allowing permit-free concealed carry
Gov. Sam Brownback signed a bill allowing Kansas residents to carry concealed firearms without a permit Thursday, making Kansas the fifth state to do so along with Alaska, Arizona, Vermont and Wyoming, according to WIBW.
The state will continue to issue permits for firearm owners who wish to carry concealed in other states that recognize Kansas permits. Brownback said gun owners have shown that they are responsible, but some Kansans oppose the move.
“We’re disappointed that Gov. Brownback and the Kansas legislature chose to ignore the will of 78 percent of Kansans who know how important basic handgun training is before carrying a weapon,” TerriLynn Barnett Miller, volunteer chapter leader of Kansas Moms Demand Action, said in statement in the news article. “Over the last several months, moms, gun violence survivors, gun shop owners and plenty of other Kansans spoke out against this dangerous setback for public safety. But today Gov. Brownback ignored us, looked the other way, and our state will be less safe as a result.”
State representative responds to reaction from email reply
According to WIBW, Rep. John Bradford, R-Lansing, received an email from Reddit user “Thad-Jarvis” regarding a bill that could potentially make Uber, a private taxi service, operations illegal in Kansas, asking him to “do the right thing for our state by opposing the poison pill amendment to SB 117. Voters like me consider this a critical issue – please fight to keep Uber in Kansas!”
After responding to the email by replying “I received your email. I don’t need it, so I am sending it back to you,” “Thad-Jarvis” posted the exchange on Reddit, noting that her husband is blind and uses Uber. By Wednesday, the post had over 2,000 comments.
Bradford spoke to FOX 4’s Shannon O’Brien Wednesday and said that a large amount of Uber-generated emails had shut down servers in the state capital, as well as locking up personal mobile devices of some Kansas lawmakers, according to the WIBW article.
“I’ve never blown off a constituent yet,” Bradford said in the article. “When you’ve got hundreds of them by the same subject line, no I do not read those … In hindsight I wouldn’t probably have said, ‘I don’t need it.’ I would probably have said, ‘Thank you, glad to have received your email. Thank you very much.'”
