Currently, in Nebraska local communities are able to set their own gun regulations. The upshot is a microcosm of current practice in the U.S., where someone who can legally carry concealed in Kansas would be a felon if they did so in, say, New Jersey. Nebraskans currently court the same fate in their own state.

Legislative Bill 68 would put Nebraska in line with more than 40 other states that require gun regulations to be set in capitol buildings rather than in city halls. The bill also contains a provision that would allow individuals and organizations to sue local governments that try to enforce ordinances more restrictive than state law.

Proponents of the bill, including the National Rifle Association, say the patchwork of gun ordinances across Nebraska is confusing and can turn lawful gun owners into unintentional offenders. The lawsuit provision is needed to make sure local governments respect the rights guaranteed under the Second Amendment, they argue, the Omaha World-Herald reports.

The anti-gun crowd likes to talk about “common sense gun control” – well, this is merely common sense.

It is ludicrous that someone from Grand Island, Nebraska, should suddenly be an offender simply because they traveled to Omaha. Local control is important where it makes sense, but it doesn’t always do so.

Even in Congress, people are beginning to realize you shouldn’t be made a felon simply because you left your home state.

Meanwhile, in Kansas, Rep. Boog Highberger (D-Lawrence) wants to make it a misdemeanor to forget your gun in a public place (honestly, this one may actually make some sense) and Rep. Vic Miller (D-Topeka) introduced a bill to ban the possession of “bump stocks” or similar devices for semi-automatic weapons and suppressors.

Suppressors and bump stocks are both legal in Kansas, and while there was widespread support for a ban on bump stocks in the wake of the Las Vegas shooting, there does not appear to have been much polling done recently.

The Kansas bills are mere posturing as the Kansas Legislature is entirely in the hands of Republicans. House Majority Leader Don Hineman (R-Dighton) told the Lawrence Journal-World last week that he thinks it’s unlikely that any more gun legislation will get serious consideration in 2018.

No more should it. Bills like the one pre-introduced in Kansas (the legislative session has yet to open in the state) are nothing but virtue signaling, as suppressors are used in crimes so rarely that the ATF has recommended they be deregulated. And so-called “bump stocks” have been used in just the one high profile incident. Legislators in states like Kansas and California should spend more time working to fix the budget issues in both states and less time posturing for their base.