The Senate passed a bill Thursday that would give Kansas law enforcement officers more options for confiscated firearms.
Under current law, agencies can sell or give away the guns they seize when someone is convicted of a crime; however, under civil asset forfeiture, which does not require a conviction, selling or giving away firearms is not an option.
When police seize a gun through civil forfeiture, they now have four options: destroy it, use it, give it to another agency to use, or send it to the Kansas Bureau of Investigation’s forensic lab.
Senate Bill 137 would allow police to sell or transfer guns seized through civil forfeiture to any of the state’s more than 1,200 licensed federal firearms dealers.
Senator Stephen Owens, a Republican from Hesston and the former owner of Patriot Pawn and Firearms in Newton, introduced the bill in January after receiving a call from the Harvey County sheriff who informed him that state law was inconsistent. Owens spoke in favor of the bill at a Senate hearing on February 11 and again on Wednesday, when the Senate debated it.
“All that this bill is doing is bringing the civil asset forfeiture code in compliance with law that already exists,” Owens told the legislature on Wednesday.
Civil asset forfeiture has been criticized as a means of promoting “profit-based policing,” according to former Representative Gail Finney, a Wichita Democrat who served in the Legislature for 13 years before her death in 2022. Finney advocated for comprehensive reform of Kansas’ decades-old civil forfeiture laws, arguing that they risked violating constitutional rights.
Senate Bill 458, which was passed in 2024, was the culmination of this reform.
While civil forfeiture does not require a criminal conviction, the government must demonstrate with clear and convincing evidence that the property in question was used in illegal activity. According to KBI data, vehicles and currency account for the vast majority of seized assets in Kansas.
Megan Hillbish, a lobbyist for the Kansas State Rifle Association, stated in testimony that the process of properly and legally destroying firearms can be expensive and time-consuming for law enforcement.
“This bill would allow law enforcement agencies to instead have the opportunity to make money from transferring the firearms to properly licensed federal firearms dealers,” Hillbish said. “This could help offset costs and incentivize firearms being used in responsible manners.”
The bill received support from the Kansas Association of Chiefs of Police, the Kansas Sheriffs Association, and the Kansas Peace Officers Association.
“This consistency makes sense,” Ed Klumpp, a lobbyist for the three law enforcement associations, stated in written testimony.
No opponents testified against the bill, but Topeka Democrat Senator Patrick Schmidt challenged it on the Senate floor Wednesday with an amendment that would only allow police to sell firearms at public auctions. He stated that the change would help alleviate his concerns about transparency in how police unload firearms.
“I think that as 137 is written right now, it does create significant loopholes and perverse interests that we don’t want happening surrounding the transfer or sale of weapons, especially those that have possibly been used in furtherance of a crime,” Schmidt told the audience.
The amendment failed, and all senators except Schmidt voted Thursday to send the bill to the House.
