Gov. Kelly tells Democrats she plans to work with Republicans to curb gun violence
Gov. Laura Kelly vowed to work with Kansas Republicans to come up with a solution to gun violence in a speech Saturday at the Democrats’ annual summer convention in Wichita.
The governor cited the mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton last week as evidence that Kansas needs to take action.
“Last weekend, 31 people died in mass shootings in places they ought to be safe,” Kelly said. “Every day there are more shootings and more victims of gun violence, nearly 30,000 per year. Enough is enough.”
Kelly said she plans to address gun violence as a public health crisis in her luncheon speech to the Demofest, an annual two-day gathering that bring hundreds of Democrats to Wichita.
“We should not have to worry about getting shot when we go to the grocery store, when we go to the movies, when we go to school,” Kelly said. “I promise you, we will change this.”
Kelly didn’t recommend a specific solution but praised moderate Republicans in the Legislature and said she’d work with the GOP to find one.
“We’re going to bring together people from both sides of the aisle,” she said. “We’re going to have those difficult conversations, and we’re going to make the changes necessary to keep our communities and our people safe.”
Exactly what the Legislature and governor could accomplish is debatable.
Three lawmakers, two Republicans and one Democrat, had very different views of how the situation should be addressed.
Rep, Brenda Landwehr, R-Wichita, said she would welcome the chance to work with the governor on expanding mental health treatment in an effort to prevent shootings, but gun control is a nonstarter for her.
She chided the governor and the state Senate for not expanding statewide a pilot program that provides mental health services to troubled children and families.
Unlike ordinary school counseling, which focuses mostly on academics, the pilot program gives the children and their families 24/7 access to an array of mental-health and crisis services.
Landwehr said the state also needs to expand the state mental hospital system and community clinics.
“Does this solve it all, no it doesn’t,” she said. “But these are the biggest issues that we deal with when we see the gun violence happen.”
Landwehr, chairwoman of the House Health and Human Services Committee, said the governor has been mostly inaccessible when she tried to raise the issue with her.
She said it took her two months to schedule a meeting with Kelly, and she was unable to schedule a follow-up.
“I’d be willing to work, but the governor’s got to make sure she’s got a policy where legislators can actually get access to her,” Landwehr said.
Democratic Rep. John Carmichael said he agrees that the mental health system needs work, but he doesn’t want to see the shooting discussion go exclusively down that track, which he said is often is a smokescreen for inaction on guns.
“If we want to stop a lot of what we have seen over the past several years, we’re going to have to get guns out of the hands of bad people,” he said.
He said no one should be able to carry weapons, as they can today, with no background checks and no training.
But he praised the governor for taking a more incremental approach of building consensus before proposing any specifics.
“Today, did she (Kelly) lay out a plan to do that (address gun violence)? No,” he said. “If she lays out a specific program today, I am certain that (House and Senate Republican leaders) will shoot it down, no matter what good idea it might be. So I commend the governor for not acting in a knee-jerk manner.
“It might be best in the long term to try to build those coalitions with the moderate Republicans, the Democrats and the governor, so we can accomplish something meaningful.”
Rep. J.C. Moore, a self-described moderate Republican, said he’d be willing to work with anyone on both mental health and gun control issues.
“I can work with the governor on any reasonable solution,” he said. “And I can work with NRA members because I am one and with more conservative members (of the Legislature). We need to get our heads together.”
Although he is a member of the National Rifle Association, “the things they promote are a little bit beyond what I would do,” he said.
He said supports background checks for gun buyers and a training requirement for gun ownership.
“And I think that the instructor should be able to determine if the person is safe to have a gun when they do the training,” he said.
