I have received an email from the President of the KSRA (Kansas State Rifle Association) in regards to Councilmember Vaught's comments last night. The KSRA is the local affiliate of the NRA.
Here are those comments:
Over the last several years the Mayor and certain members of the City Council of Shawnee, KS have repeatedly moved to pass city ordinances regarding firearms that are NOT legal, contrary to state law and not
even in the purview of local control. Those actions have resulted in the KSRA receiving a multitude of complaints from members who live in Shawnee. The KSRA has intervened each time to stop those ordinances from being passed.
When elected officials try to run over its citizens on Second Amendment issues it is our job to promote candidates for election that will not waste the tax payers money trying to promote gun control.
Jeff Vaught, Shawnee Councilman, had the audacity to declare in the council meeting March 26th that the KSRA PAC is doing the bidding of Shawnee resident Mike Egan because he is one of our biggest
contributors and alleged that we are trying to "buy the election". No Mr. Vaught, you are dead wrong and your statement is ludicrous. There is NO "secret" agenda. We've been quite public about it. We are
promoting Second Amendment friendly candidates so we can quit spending our time keeping you in check. We've grown weary of the nonsense coming out of the Shawnee City Council regarding firearms laws.
We are not the only group who seems to have a problem with the actions of the current officials. There are other organizations and interested parties who are also supporting the opposing candidates. To hear Mr.
Vaught tell it we have some kind of grand conspiracy going on that even includes Representative John Rubin. The KSRA PAC has every right to endorse candidates that it feels will protect the Second Amendment.
It is the reason the KSRA PAC exists and what our contributors and members expect us to do, none of which, including Mike Egan, have any say whatsoever on who is endorsed. We have a specific and logical
method for evaluating candidates and endorsements are a result of that evaluation. It is commonplace for organizations such as the KSRA PAC to make endorsements in any race it feels elected officials should be
replaced.
For those who would like to hear Mr. Vaught's statements, you can listen to the audio recording here. It is towards the end of the audio recording at about 25:00.
http://shawneecityks.iqm2.com/Citizens/VideoMain.aspx?MeetingID=1160
