Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
A federal judge has dismissed a national gun control group’s lawsuit against Gov. Sam Brownback over a 2013 law that creates a felony charge for individuals enforcing federal gun regulations.
“Brady Campaign lacks Article III standing to challenge the Second Amendment Protection Act in this lawsuit because it has not shown that enforcement of the statute inflicts an actual or imminently-threatened injury on any Brady Campaign member,” U.S. District Court Judge Julie Robinson wrote Friday.
As a result, Robinson said, the district court couldn’t consider the merits of the Brady Campaign’s arguments.
The Kansas statute known as the Second Amendment Protection Act, passed in April 2013, states firearms made and kept in Kansas are exempt from federal gun laws. It provides for the filing of felony charges against any federal employee attempting to enforce federal regulations on Kansas firearms and ammunition.
“A personal firearm, a firearm accessory or ammunition that is manufactured commercially or privately and owned in Kansas and that remains within the borders of Kansas is not subject to any federal law, treaty, federal regulation, or federal executive action,” the law states.
The Brady Center lawsuit cited the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution — which says federal law rules supreme over state law — among the reasons to declare the law unconstitutional. The group also claimed the law was too vague by both U.S. Constitution and Kansas Constitution standards.
Robinson wrote that the Brady Center, as the plaintiff, “must be suffering a continuing injury or be under a real and immediate threat of being injured in the future” as a consequence of the law.
“Brady Campaign does not claim that any of its members have suffered an actual injury from a ‘Kansas’ firearm or any other weapon as a result of the Act’s enforcement,” the ruling states. “Rather, Brady Campaign argues that the Act imposes an unacceptable risk of future gun violence on the organization’s Kansas-based members.”
The Brady Campaign named one member in particular: Hiawatha Mayor Crosby Gernon. The group argued that Gernon, under the new law, could face criminal prosecution as a federal agent if he worked with federal law enforcement groups conducting investigations in Hiawatha.
“The Court is unable to conclude that Plaintiff met its burden of establishing an injury in fact for any of its members based on an increased risk of violence under the Act,” Robinson wrote in dismissing the Brady Campaign’s argument.
Moreover, the judge wrote that the Brady Campaign’s argument that Gernon could face prosecution was “wholly conjectural.”
“The facts alleged in Brady Campaign’s Complaint, however, do not suggest that he has ever acted under federal authority in the past or that he will have occasion to do so in the future,” Robinson said. “In fact, the Complaint does not allege that Mayor Gernon’s official duties call for interaction with federal officers at all.”
In a news release Friday, Attorney General Derek Schmidt praised Robinson’s ruling.
“This legal challenge lacked merit, and I appreciate the federal court’s ruling that the Washington, D.C.- based plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge this duly enacted Kansas law,” Schmidt said.
Alla Lefkowitz, a staff attorney for the Brady Campaign, said in a statement Saturday morning that the group is considering its next move.
"Although we are disappointed that the court did not reach the merits of the case, we are evaluating our options to ensure that Kansans and other Americans are not harmed by this dangerous and unconstitutional law," Lefkowitz said. "Despite its misleading title, the 'Second Amendment Protection Act' is nothing more than an attempt to intimidate law enforcement and void sensible gun laws, both of which are necessary to protect the public from gun violence."