Washburn University’s board of regents unanimously approved a concealed carry policy recently. Changes to Kansas laws are set to take effect this summer. The regents for Washburn, which is in Topeka, had delayed a vote on this topic in order to wait for some of the state’s other laws to get sorted out.
A lot of the people in power in Kansas really do not want concealed carry on Kansas campuses. In 2016 and 2017, there were multiple attempts to implement exemptions to the 2013 Kansas law that allowed concealed carry in public buildings, including universities. Even though that law was implemented in 2013, it allowed Kansas public colleges and universities to delay having to adhere to that law until July 2017. People who are opposed to concealed carry on campus have been trying to block that law from taking effect on July 1 or else delaying it.
Administrators at the colleges have said that the cost of installing additional security measures at campuses as a result of this campus carry policy is too expensive. The additional securit measures they’re talking about are metal detectors and additional physical security guard employees. Even the students don’t necessarily want campus concealed carry. In many cases, students do want concealed carry but here, the majority don’t. A 2015 survey of Washburn students who responded to a questionnaire showed that 53 percent didn’t want to allow concealed weapons on campus, 13 percent favored extending the exemption for colleges and universities past July 1 and 34 percent favored allowing the policy to take effect July 1.
