Topeka ? Before the governor’s race is over, expect a shoot-out over the issue of gun control.

In a debate last week in Wichita, Republican Tim Shallenburger fired the first salvo. He said that when his Democratic opponent, Kathleen Sebelius, was a lawmaker in 1994, she introduced in the state Legislature a proposal that would have prohibited more guns than President Clinton sought to ban on the federal level.

“I do support people’s right to defend themselves,” Shallenburger said. “It’s in the Constitution. I believe people should have the right to carry a weapon on their person. My wife was a retailer, and she had to take the bank deposits to the bank, and there were many nights when she left that dark mall parking lot to go to that dark bank parking lot when she felt unsafe and insecure.”

The gun-control bill co-sponsored by Sebelius went nowhere in the Legislature.

Sebelius defended her stand on guns and criticized Shallenburger’s support of a bill, when he was a legislator, that would have allowed Kansans to carry concealed weapons.

“I don’t support the notion that somehow we all would be safer if everybody has a weapon,” Sebelius said. The bill eventually passed the Legislature but was vetoed by Gov. Bill Graves in 1997.

The National Rifle Assn. endorsed Shallenburger in the GOP primary and will endorse him in the Nov. 5 election against Sebelius.

“Tim Shallenburger is a stalwart supporter of gun owners and the Second Amendment,” said Kelly Whitley, a spokeswoman for the NRA. “Sebelius will give anti-gun advocates unprecedented stronghold.”

Whitley declined to say to what extent the NRA would get involved in the Kansas governor’s race but said the organization would at the least contact its 40,000 members in Kansas on the records of the two candidates.

Whitley said the bill that was co-sponsored by Sebelius “would have turned law-abiding hunters and sportsmen into felons.”

Not true, says the Sebelius campaign.

The bill would have affected 18 weapons and left more than 650 unaffected, said Sebelius’ spokeswoman Nicole Corcoran-Basso. She said Sebelius supported hunters and that the bill had nothing to do with them.

Corcoran-Basso said she expected gun advocacy groups to campaign hard for Shallenburger.

“We are monitoring radio and TV for those kinds of (advertising) buys. We know for certain that a representative of the NRA was taping the Kansas State Fair debate and maybe the Wichita debate. They are clearly watching what is going on here in Kansas.

“We do anticipate them being a factor in trying to sway people in what they think about Kathleen,” she said.