Senate advances bill to allow sale of forfeited firearms to licensed dealers after debate over safeguards

The Kansas Senate reported favorably on Senate Bill 137, a bill that would add an option to the state’s civil asset forfeiture law allowing forfeited firearms to be sold or transferred to a licensed federal firearms dealer.

Senator Thompson, senator from Johnson and the bill’s carrier, told the Committee of the Whole the change is a technical conforming amendment to bring the civil asset forfeiture code into alignment with existing criminal-code options for seized weapons. “Senate Bill 137 simply adds a fifth option, which would authorize, that already seized firearm, to be sold or transferred to a properly licensed federal firearms dealer,” Thompson said.

Opponents and some colleagues raised concerns about the potential for unchecked transfers and the absence of remuneration protections. Senator Schmidt, senator from Shawnee, offered an amendment (No. 1608) that would have required any sale to occur “at public auction” and would have struck the transfer-to-dealer language; the amendment also added a buyer qualification that purchasers must be able to lawfully own the firearm under state and federal law. Schmidt said the change was intended to “provide for more sunshine and also create a market mechanism.”

Senator Owens, speaking as a supporter of the bill as drafted, said the change addresses an inconsistency between criminal and civil forfeiture statutes and reflected a sheriff’s request for uniformity. Owens warned that adopting the public-auction amendment would create “an entirely new mechanism that would only apply to the civil asset forfeiture code, not to the criminal code.”

The amendment failed after a call for a roll call vote did not secure the required number of hands; the committee then reported SB 137 favorably for passage. The committee motion to report the bill was carried by voice vote.