Kansas Regents Balance Interests In Guns-On-Campus Debate

As head of the governing board of Kansas' state university system, Shane Bangerter figured the panel was in a no-win situation last week when faced with the need to adopt guidelines for how gun owners will be able to carry concealed firearms onto campuses and into some buildings next year.

Opposition to the law permitting concealed carry has been fierce on the system's six campuses, largely on public safety grounds. That disapproval is counterbalanced by a Legislature that holds strong gun rights majorities in both the House and Senate, controls the universities' purse strings and has pushed to let gun owners carry their weapons as many places as possible.

Wednesday's action by the board of regents drew approval from both sides. But the divide over guns at college is likely to continue simmering through July 2017, when the law passed in 2013 takes effect.

11/3/2014 Related Story: New Oklahoma Law Allows Licensed Gun Owners To Bring Guns On School Grounds

"Obviously not everybody's going to be happy," Bangerter said. "But it is what it is, and we're doing our best to follow the law."

Over time, he said, the unease will blow over. But a faculty adviser to an anti-gun student club, worried that guns on campus could spawn violence during intense classroom discussions or suicides among despondent students, thinks Bangerter is mistaken.

"That just implies it's no big deal," said Allan Hanson, a University of Kansas anthropology professor who counseled KU's "Keep Guns Off Campus" group. "What I hope will blow over will be this law. This is a really, really dangerous, uncalled for and stupid law."

In Kansas, where gun owners can carry concealed without a license or training, public universities as of July 2017 must allow anyone 21 or older to have concealed firearms on campus in buildings without security measures including metal detectors -- an option widely considered cost-prohibitive for the majority of campus buildings. The regents last week directed the universities to develop more detailed policies by the fall for the safe storage and handling of guns on campus, and to determine which buildings will see beefed-up security.

State Sen. Forrest Knox, a southeast Kansas Republican and a leading gun rights advocate, praised the regents' handling of the matter.

"They're complying with the law and being reasonable," said Knox, from Altoona.

Kansas and at least seven other states allow carrying a concealed weapon on a college campus, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Missouri and 18 other states ban concealed carry on campus, but lawmakers in Missouri have proposed legislation to lift the ban. Two dozen states leave the decision to the college or university.

The Kansas law's supporters argue gun-free zones attract mass shootings. But opposition on the affected campuses left the Kansas regents "serving two masters," said Chapman Rackaway, a political science professor at Fort Hays State University, among the schools the regents oversee.

"When the two come into conflict, it's a tough place for the regents to be in," Rackaway said. He said the board made a good decision in letting each university draft concealed-carry policies unique to their campus.

At Fort Hays, the westernmost and most rural of the affected Kansas schools, Rackaway said reaction to the law has "ranged from disinterest and ambivalence to outright fear."

"What nobody is saying is, `This is going to make our campus safer,"' he said.

At southeast Kansas' Pittsburg State University, 21-year-old senior David Haag said he has felt unnerved by U.S. campus shootings in recent years and isn't mollified by Kansas' broadened concealed carry law, fearing that "shootings will increase."

"I'm not a fan of it in any form. Not one bit," said Haag, a senior communications major from Topeka. Before the law takes effect, "I'm trying to graduate."

Knox, the lawmaker, countered that campus shootings have been more about the shooter's "criminal behavior" than about concealed carry, insisting the Kansas law "just allows law-abiding citizens to provide for their own protection."