“Of course we don’t want to take your guns,” the anti-gunner will tell you. “We just want to enact some ‘common sense’ gun reforms that will keep guns out of the wrong hands.”

How many times have you heard some variation on this? Oh, you and I both know that most of the time, it’s total BS, but you’ve heard it. If a politicians says some variation on this kind of thing and you say they really want to take our guns, the “fact-checkers” stepped in and claim that the politician wants no such thing because they totally said they didn’t.

The thing is, those “fact-checkers” are probably going to have to engage in some interesting mental gymnastics on this one.

The Democratic Senate candidate in Kansas came out in support of Australian-style gun confiscation during a campaign event last weekend.

When asked about adding a training requirement to the state’s gun-carry permit application process, Democrat Barbara Bollier said U.S. gun-control measures do not go far enough. After noting that she has a daughter living in Australia, Bollier praised a controversial gun-confiscation program the country instituted in the 1990s.

“They have no guns. They don’t allow them. They just took them all away,” Bollier said with a chuckle in a video obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. “And, you know what, it’s pretty darn safe. It’s this amazing thing.”

Of course, that’s not entirely accurate, of course. There are still guns in Australia. It’s just a major pain in the butt to get one. They did, however, confiscate a proverbial butt-ton of firearms from law-abiding citizens while criminals didn’t give up jack squat.

Further, they still have plenty of violent crime, just on a different scale than us. Then again, they were on that different scale even before their gun restrictions were enacted. You’ll also find their violent crime rate using non-firearm weapons is much lower than ours as well.

Anyway, Bollier is trying to help wrest power from the Republicans in a traditionally red state, but this isn’t likely to help her very much. Kansans are fairly pragmatic when it comes to politics and aren’t afraid to vote for a Democrat if the Republican running is a tool, but they’re not likely to back anyone who tries to defend gun confiscation.

Bollier’s website has absolutely no mention of guns on her issues page, so it’s difficult to tell if she’s been pushing for lesser forms of gun control or not. We do know that in the state House, she voted against every pro-gun measure that’s rolled around, though, so it’s probably safe to say she’s been anti-gun from the get-go.

However, she also may have gotten away with her anti-gun beliefs because she didn’t delve into how far they went.

Now, the Democrats’ bid to take over the state Senate hangs in the balance and Bollier–anti-gun as she is–may have just shot those chances in the foot. Kansans love their guns and their gun rights. I suspect this may hurt not just her campaign, but the campaigns of any other Democrats she’s closely aligned with in the state.