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Kansas
...The legislation would give individuals the opportunity to purchase, for instance, a machine gun.
Klumpp said his group supported the right of manufacturers and dealers to sell the weapons to law enforcement but was wary of expanding the bill to private citizens.
"We just have failed to hear any valid reasons for expanding it to individuals," he said.
Do people need a reason? asked Rep. Candy Ruff, D-Leavenworth.
"If people want to possess it, it's up to them," she said....
...The legislation would give individuals the opportunity to purchase, for instance, a machine gun.
Klumpp said his group supported the right of manufacturers and dealers to sell the weapons to law enforcement but was wary of expanding the bill to private citizens.
"We just have failed to hear any valid reasons for expanding it to individuals," he said.
Do people need a reason? asked Rep. Candy Ruff, D-Leavenworth.
"If people want to possess it, it's up to them," she said....
And she supports CC in Kansas
1999
Ruff, who admits being "as conservative as a liberal can get," is pressing to pass a concealed carry bill in Kansas, even while many legislators and the governor are dead set against it. And while such a bill may seem inconsistent with her background, it really isn't. Now in her fourth term in the Kansas House, L. Candy Ruff (the "L" stands for Lyanne, an Irish family name. But "Candy sounds better," she said. "I'm a sweetheart of a girl.") entered politics after exploring two careers -- that of a social worker in Missouri and California and a journalist in Kansas.
She now has returned to college at the University of Kansas and is working to collect degrees in journalism and history. Ruff joined the Legislature in 1992 after Leavenworth's districts were redrawn to reflect a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said prisoners should be counted in the census. Though politics has always been an interest, running for office wasn't among her goals for most of her life. Instead, she has been an activist in many other areas.
Ruff, 48, came of age during the tumultuous 1960s. She remembers protesting the Vietnam War and fighting for civil rights when she was in high school. She once was arrested along with more than 100 others in 1968 for throwing tomatoes at then-presidential candidate George Wallace, the segregationist governor of Alabama. She was 17 and as passionate then as she is now. She grew up in Springfield, Mo., and became the family's first Democrat since the Civil War. Her political views were a natural product of the times, she said. "You can't live in those times and not be affected by it," she said. "Who was gonna be a Republican then? It was the revolution."
Ruff attended the University of Missouri at Kansas City, but one semester short of earning a degree in social welfare, she quit school to "change the world" as a social worker. She spent three years as a social worker in Kansas City, Mo. She then moved to Los Angeles, where she worked another three years in adoption and foster care. In 1976, she moved to Leavenworth after her first husband, a prison guard, was transferred to the federal penitentiary. She took a job as a social worker for the Council on Aging and began to consider returning to school to finish her degree and earn a master's.
But then, in summer 1982, something happened that would forever change her life. Her brother was murdered. "That really hurt," she said. "Having a life-altering experience like that, you kind of take stock of things." By chance, as she was reconsidering her life, Ruff met the editor of the Leavenworth Times, who recruited her as a reporter. She spent about a decade at the paper, eventually becoming a section editor. Then, after working about a year as a correspondent for The Topeka Capital-Journal, she quit the newspaper business to pursue politics.
Besides growing up in the '60s, Ruff attributes her interest in politics to a love of history. A large painting of her hero, Democratic President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, hangs on the wall above her desk. A picture of another favorite politician, President Harry S. Truman, also stands nearby in her office. Ruff said she loves the political process.
This session she has jumped to the forefront as an outspoken leader of a bill that would allow licensed Kansans to carry a concealed handgun. She champions the bill as a means for women to defend themselves against attackers. She has heard many horror stories from women who were brutally beaten and raped. "These women have had their sense of security shattered," Ruff said. "They want to defend themselves. I'm not going to tell them no." She asked her husband, Gregory Ruff, a lieutenant on the Leavenworth police force, for his opinion. "He said the last person the cops are afraid of is a law-abiding citizen," she said.
Ruff, who admits being "as conservative as a liberal can get," is pressing to pass a concealed carry bill in Kansas, even while many legislators and the governor are dead set against it. And while such a bill may seem inconsistent with her background, it really isn't. Now in her fourth term in the Kansas House, L. Candy Ruff (the "L" stands for Lyanne, an Irish family name. But "Candy sounds better," she said. "I'm a sweetheart of a girl.") entered politics after exploring two careers -- that of a social worker in Missouri and California and a journalist in Kansas.
She now has returned to college at the University of Kansas and is working to collect degrees in journalism and history. Ruff joined the Legislature in 1992 after Leavenworth's districts were redrawn to reflect a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said prisoners should be counted in the census. Though politics has always been an interest, running for office wasn't among her goals for most of her life. Instead, she has been an activist in many other areas.
Ruff, 48, came of age during the tumultuous 1960s. She remembers protesting the Vietnam War and fighting for civil rights when she was in high school. She once was arrested along with more than 100 others in 1968 for throwing tomatoes at then-presidential candidate George Wallace, the segregationist governor of Alabama. She was 17 and as passionate then as she is now. She grew up in Springfield, Mo., and became the family's first Democrat since the Civil War. Her political views were a natural product of the times, she said. "You can't live in those times and not be affected by it," she said. "Who was gonna be a Republican then? It was the revolution."
Ruff attended the University of Missouri at Kansas City, but one semester short of earning a degree in social welfare, she quit school to "change the world" as a social worker. She spent three years as a social worker in Kansas City, Mo. She then moved to Los Angeles, where she worked another three years in adoption and foster care. In 1976, she moved to Leavenworth after her first husband, a prison guard, was transferred to the federal penitentiary. She took a job as a social worker for the Council on Aging and began to consider returning to school to finish her degree and earn a master's.
But then, in summer 1982, something happened that would forever change her life. Her brother was murdered. "That really hurt," she said. "Having a life-altering experience like that, you kind of take stock of things." By chance, as she was reconsidering her life, Ruff met the editor of the Leavenworth Times, who recruited her as a reporter. She spent about a decade at the paper, eventually becoming a section editor. Then, after working about a year as a correspondent for The Topeka Capital-Journal, she quit the newspaper business to pursue politics.
Besides growing up in the '60s, Ruff attributes her interest in politics to a love of history. A large painting of her hero, Democratic President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, hangs on the wall above her desk. A picture of another favorite politician, President Harry S. Truman, also stands nearby in her office. Ruff said she loves the political process.
This session she has jumped to the forefront as an outspoken leader of a bill that would allow licensed Kansans to carry a concealed handgun. She champions the bill as a means for women to defend themselves against attackers. She has heard many horror stories from women who were brutally beaten and raped. "These women have had their sense of security shattered," Ruff said. "They want to defend themselves. I'm not going to tell them no." She asked her husband, Gregory Ruff, a lieutenant on the Leavenworth police force, for his opinion. "He said the last person the cops are afraid of is a law-abiding citizen," she said.
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