Hutchinson ? When Kansas began allowing qualified residents to carry concealed handguns, A.J. Conard posted a sign at her business prohibiting them. When two members of a gun club objected to the sign, she took it down.

A small victory – Conard says she had mistakenly thought the sign was required by law – but one that a handful of Hutchinson area gun owners hope to duplicate at other stores through boycotts.

Conard didn’t want to lose potential customers. Her company, Apollo Engraving, happens to sell the signs, but Conard says they don’t reflect her own sentiments.

“I do quite a bit of work for these gun people,” she said. “That’s money in my pocket. I’m not that afraid of people coming in with guns. I just turn myself and my employees over to the big man upstairs.”

The 2006 statute specifically bans concealed guns in such places as courthouses, schools and churches, but it also lets businesses prohibit them by posting signs.

A recent count on a stretch of Hutchinson’s Main Street found the signs in just 14 of more than 140 storefronts, The Hutchinson News reported. Several of those with signs were financial or medical offices.

Signs prohibiting concealed guns also are posted at entrances to the Hutchinson Mall. Mall manager Dan Flores said the decision was made by the corporate owner and there was no discussion among the merchants. But Flores supports the decision.

“Just look at what happened at the Trolley Center,” he said, referring to a shooting this week at a Utah mall, where a teen killed five people.

Hutchinson resident Don O’Neal – among the 132 Reno County residents who has applied for a permit – said he would stop buying tools at Sears, which has a store at the mall. And Tom McGuire said he’ll only go to the mall now to visit the driver’s license examiner’s office.

“What that sign is telling the majority of us, myself in particular, is that organization is against the Constitution of the United States, which gives us the right to bear arms,” O’Neal said.

At Sunset Pawn and Jewelry, owner Ralph Thrash said he’s taken grief from some customers, but he’s keeping the signs.

“It’s their right to carry,” Thrash said. “And it’s our right to say no.”