KU Office of Public Safety

When concealed guns come to campus, one new thing Kansas Board of Regents universities appear likely to be required to do is to provide a secure storage location.

That’s something the Kansas University Office of Public Safety has already been doing since 2009, though only a handful of students use the service, said KU police Capt. James Anguiano.

KU is one of two Regents universities to offer such a service currently.

KU’s free gun storage is aimed at hunters who want to bring their rifles and shotguns to school with them and take them out on the weekend, but aren’t allowed to keep the firearms in their on-campus residence halls or apartments, Anguiano said.

“A lot of our students that are from this area, they can go home, and they’re usually hunting in their area,” he said. “Sometimes we get students from out of state, from Texas, or sometimes the East Coast.”

Roughly four to five students per semester ask to store their guns, Anguiano said.

The KU Office of Public Safety’s “Storage of Civilian Firearms” policy says the service is for legal rifles and shotguns belonging to students, faculty and staff living on campus, or university departments that own firearms for work-related reasons.

Here’s how it works, according to Anguiano:

• A student wishing to store a gun must bring it to the KU Office of Public Safety, provide a government-issued photo ID, which is photocopied and kept with the weapon, and sign a log. Police check serial numbers to verify the gun is not stolen or connected to any crime.

• Guns may be stored and retrieved during normal business hours, although — particularly since it’s not unusual for hunting trips to start before dawn — police will meet a student to do so at other times.

• Guns are stored in a locker, and only police have the key.

• Firearms must be transported in cases, and unloaded. KU won’t store ammunition.

Anguiano said he initiated and wrote the policy after seeing that a number of other schools, mostly in the Midwest, offered a similar service. He added that it’s a “very cost effective” thing to provide.

“When you start going to different conferences and talking to different people at different universities, you see things come up and you say, ‘Hey that’s not a bad idea,'” he said.

Police have not had any problems with guns or students using the service, he said.

Emporia State University also provides gun storage for students at its Police and Safety office, and has done so for at least 10 years, ESU police Cpl. Jerrod Schumann said.

The number of users fluctuates but seems to be around eight a semester, Schumann said.

Kansas State, Wichita State, Fort Hays State and Pittsburg State universities do not provide gun storage, according to campus police officials.

Ed Howell, university police chief at Fort Hays, said one reason his office doesn’t provide gun storage is liability. He said he had concerns with storing weapons in case someone — such as a person with a protection from abuse order — should later use the gun to commit a crime.

Under state law, public universities in Kansas must allow concealed weapons on campus beginning July 1, 2017.

The Regents and individual universities currently are working on policies to implement the change.

The Regents have drafted amendments to their current weapons policy that, among other things, would require universities to provide a secure storage location for weapons on campus, such as at their respective police offices. The draft calls for firearms to be locked up when not in the lawful carrier’s possession.

Tentatively, the Regents expect to discuss the issue in committee this month and before the full board in January, said Regents spokeswoman Breeze Richardson.

After the Regents adopt a policy, then individual universities will be charged with crafting their own, more specific policies for their respective campuses.

Without any new state or KU policies decided yet, though, it remains to be seen how KU’s gun storage service might be affected.

“We’re like everybody else,” Anguiano said. “We’re kind of waiting to see what’s going to happen.”

Weapons on campus information session

The University Senate at Kansas University is planning an informational session about changes in the law that will allow concealed weapons on campus. KU students, faculty and staff are invited to attend the event from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. Tuesday in 120 Budig Hall.