Legislation would limit firearms ban to places with metal detectors, security guards 
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By
Tim Carpenter
February 28, 2010 - 6:01pm
Metal detectors would be installed in Manhattan outside every Kansas State University academic building.
Law enforcement officers at Washburn University would take up position in support of new security hardware on the Topeka campus.
Dining halls, laboratories and recreation facilities at The University of Kansas in Lawrence would be wrapped in the same precautionary zeal.
Absent these dramatic security upgrades, under legislation pending in a House committee, anyone with a state-issued conceal-and-carry permit would be free to pack heat at the seven public universities, as well as the 19 community colleges and six technical schools under jurisdiction of the Kansas Board of Regents.
Current "weapon-free" policies would be shot under a bill proposed by Rep. Forrest Knox, an Altoona Republican. His idea is endorsed by firearm enthusiasts and denounced by city, county, police and university officials.
"The Board of Regents has substantial concerns about the implications of this legislation," said Julene Miller, general counsel for the Kansas higher education board. "It is our firm belief that allowing weapons on campus would significantly increase the risk of violence and harm to students, faculty and others rather than making anyone safer."
Knox said the concern expressed by Miller was misguided and time had come to install common sense into the state's concealed weapon law.
He said the 2006 statute was flawed because city, county, school and state officials were granted the power to block concealed weapons in any public building by simply hanging a sign on the door. His legislation, House Bill 2685, would limit the ban to public spaces exhibiting "adequate security measures," such as metal detectors and law enforcement officers.
The legislator said the state overstepped by adopting a law that put a bull's-eye on potential targets for criminal conduct.
"The reality is that if a person's ability to provide for their own security is impeded by law, then that responsibility, and the associated liability, falls to someone else. In the case of state and local government who post public facilities, it lies to them," he said.
The bill under consideration by the House Federal and State Affairs Committee is a magnet for special-interest groups at the Statehouse.
Jordan Austin, a Kansas lobbyist with the Kansas Rifle Association of America, said people working in or visiting buildings operated at taxpayer expense should feel safe.
"Yet," she said, "the citizens of this state are denied their right to keep and bear firearms for personal protection in those buildings."
Representatives of the League of Kansas Municipalities, Kansas Association of Counties, Kansas Peace Officers' Association, Kansas Association of Chiefs of Police and Kansas Hospital Association questioned the wisdom of Knox's proposal.
Ed Klumpp, legislative liaison for the police chief group and a former Topeka police chief, said the bill would impose an unrealistic financial burden on small communities. Many will have no alternative to opening buildings to the carrying of concealed weapons because the cost of new security is too high, he said.
He said the sweep of Knox's bill was excessively wide.
"The new rules would apply to public health and mental health centers, court facilities, law enforcement facilities, some election places but not others, and publicly owned facilities used for child exchange or visitation," Klumpp said.
