The state of Kansas is pretty pro-gun, all things considered. They have a lot of good gun laws on the books and that drives anti-gun advocates absolutely nuts.

However, it seems that some local officials there are more than willing to side with gun control groups when they think no one will notice.

It’s unfortunate for them, then, that someone did.

Kansas gun rights activists over the past 20 years have successfully legalized concealed weapons without a permit, blocked attempts to pass “red flag” laws to allow law enforcement to take firearms away from individuals in crisis and just this spring eliminated most fees on conceal-carry licenses.

Their latest effort is taking on official proclamations to raise awareness of gun violence.

The Kansas State Rifle Association, the NRA’s state affiliate, sent letters last week to officials in Roeland Park and Parsons, in the southwest part of the state, objecting to proclamations marking June as Gun Violence Awareness Month and June 2 as Gun Violence Awareness Day. Both commemorations are nationally recognized.

The proclamations are non-binding messages of support and solidarity for victims of gun violence. They say “support for the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding individuals goes hand-in-hand with keeping guns away from people with dangerous histories” and encourage residents to support local efforts to prevent gun violence.

Now, so far, you might be wondering what the big deal is. After all, it’s just about gun violence and doesn’t seem to expressly mention gun control, so what’s the problem?

Well, the problem is that it’s not some innocuous message about violent crime. There’s far more going on here.

But the KSRA describes the declarations as part of an effort by the “radical gun-control lobby” to enlist local governments in a push to restrict gun rights. The letters single out the national organization Moms Demand Action and other groups that advocate for additional firearm restrictions and safety measures for criticism.

“Should Roeland Park or any other local unit of government choose to go beyond allowing national gun-control groups to use government resources to promote their extreme agenda and additionally take action to limit the rights of law-abiding firearm owners to defend themselves from violent crime, you can rest assured that the Kansas State Rifle Association will not stand idly by,” Moriah Day, KSRA’s director, wrote in one letter.

See, the problem isn’t that they issued a proclamation about so-called gun violence, but whose agenda they pushed using taxpayer dollars in order to do it.

Hell, despite supposed national recognition, the idea of “Gun Violence Awareness Month” is inherently political in nature and inherently anti-gun. It’s based on the supposition that a violent crime committed with a gun is somehow more troubling that any other violent crime.

It’s not.

Yet even if you disagree, pushing a proclamation by a group that equates “gun violence” and “gun safety” with a need to curtail our right to keep and bear arms is still going to be an issue.

Groups like Moms Demand Action don’t come up with these things for cities to push because they’re bored. They do it because it allows them to legitimize their anti-gun activities. They can pretend they do more than just push for gun control.

What’s more, the taxpayers of these cities footed the bill for this grandstanding by either anti-gun or just stupid local lawmakers who didn’t bother to do any homework on the subject.

They deserved to be called out, and that’s without getting into the heavy anti-gun bias in the piece itself.