Kansas Attorney General Opinion 2015-017

October 19, 2015
ATTORNEY GENERAL OPINION NO. 2015- 17
Jennifer L. Magaña
City Attorney and Director of Law
City Hall
455 N. Main St.
Wichita, KS 67202-1635
Re: 	State Departments; Public Officers and Employees‒Firearms‒Personal
and 	Family 	Protection 	Act; 	Restrictions 	on 	Carrying 	a 	Concealed
Handgun; Concealed Handguns in Public Buildings
Synopsis: 	The Personal and Family Protection Act (PFPA) does not authorize a city
to adopt a “prescreen” process whereby certain members of the public
may apply to be approved to bypass security measures at the public
entrances to the city hall. Cited herein: K.S.A. 2015 Supp. 21-6309; 75-
7c01; K.S.A. 2012 Supp. 75-7c10; K.S.A. 2015 Supp. 75-7c10; 75-7c17;
75-7c20; 75-6102.
* 	* 	*
Dear Ms. Magaña:
As the Wichita City Attorney, you ask our opinion whether the Personal and Family
Protection Act 1 (PFPA) would allow a city to establish a screening process to allow
certain pre-approved members of the public to bypass adequate security measures in
place at the public entrance to the city hall.
In the scenario you describe, a person who is not a city employee could apply to receive
a “prescreen pass” that would allow that person to enter the city hall through the city
employee entrance, without being subject to screening by a metal detector or security
staff at the public entrance. You indicate that applicants for a prescreen pass would be
1 K.S.A. 2015 Supp. 75-7c01 et seq.

Jennifer Magaña
Page 2
required to submit to a criminal background check; be approved by the mayor or city
council members; and sign an affidavit acknowledging that certain items are prohibited
inside the building. 2
Your question involves several provisions of the PFPA, which is commonly known as
the Kansas concealed carry law.
The PFPA expressly limits the ability of cities to regulate the concealed carry of
handguns:
No city, county or other political subdivision of this state shall regulate,
restrict or prohibit the carrying of concealed handguns by individuals
except as provided in K.S.A. 2014 Supp. 21-6301, 21-6302, 21-6304, 21-
6309, 75-7c10 or 75–7c20, and amendments thereto, or K.S.A. 21–
4218(f), prior to its repeal.3
Thus, a city rule regulating, restricting or prohibiting concealed carry must be authorized
by the provisions of one of the specific statutes listed above. Any existing or future local
rule or law that attempts to regulate concealed carry except as provided by those
statutes is void. 4 Of those enumerated statutes, only K.S.A. 2015 Supp. 75-7c10 and
75-7c20 are relevant to your question; the other statutes are part of the Kansas criminal
code and do not apply here.5
K.S.A. 2015 Supp. 75-7c10(a) establishes the general rule that concealed carry may be
prohibited inside a building by posting certain signage at all exterior entrances to the
building. However, state or municipal buildings are also “[s]ubject to the provisions of
K.S.A. 75-7c20, and amendments thereto.”6
K.S.A. 2015 Supp. 75-7c20 generally prohibits a city from banning concealed carry
inside city buildings, 7 but also provides two exceptions to that rule. One exception
allows a city to exempt a city building, such as the city hall, from the requirements of
K.S.A. 2015 Supp. 75-7c20 for a period of four years,8 thereby allowing the city to
prohibit concealed carry in that building by posting signage in accordance with K.S.A.
2015 Supp. 75-7c10. This exception is inapplicable to your question because you state
2 Although you do not expressly state it in your letter, we assume for the purposes of this opinion that
firearms are among the list of prohibited items.
3 K.S.A. 2015 Supp. 75-7c17(a).
4 Id.
5 Under K.S.A. 2015 Supp. 21-6309 it is a crime to carry a firearm within certain state government
buildings, and within a county courthouse unless authorized by the county commission. This statute does
not apply to city buildings, however.
6 K.S.A. 2015 Supp. 75-7c10. City-owned or leased buildings are considered municipal buildings for the
purposes of the PFPA. K.S.A. 2015 Supp. 75-7c20(m)(5)(a). See also K.S.A. 2015 Supp. 75-7c20(m)(2)
and 75-6102(b).
7 K.S.A. 2015 Supp. 75-7c20(a).
8 K.S.A. 2015 Supp. 75-7c20(i) and (j).

Jennifer Magaña
Page 3
that adequate security measures are in place in the city hall. Thus, we examine your
question in light of the second exception.
The second exception to the general rule that concealed carry must be allowed in state
or municipal buildings is found in K.S.A. 2015 Supp. 75-7c20. That statute, originally
enacted in 2013, 9 is a departure from the previous rule, which allowed concealed carry
to be prohibited inside any building, whether public or private, simply by posting the
building with certain signage. 10 Under current law, unless a state or municipal building is
temporarily exempt from the provisions of K.S.A. 2015 Supp. 75-7c20, “adequate
security measures” also must be provided “to ensure that no weapons are permitted to
be carried into the building.” 11 In other words, it is no longer sufficient to rely on the
public to comply with signs prohibiting concealed carry; the non-exempt state or
municipal building must have measures in place to ensure that no weapons are
permitted to be carried into the building.
To answer your question, we first consider what “adequate security measures” means
within the context of the PFPA. K.S.A. 2015 Supp. 75-7c20(b) states: “[a]ny state or
municipal building which contains both public access and restricted access entrances
shall provide adequate security measures at the public access entrances in order to
prohibit the carrying of any weapons into such building.”12 The PFPA defines adequate
security measures as follows:
[T]he use of electronic equipment and personnel at public entrances to
detect and restrict the carrying of any weapons into the building, including,
but not limited to, metal detectors, metal detector wands or any other
equipment used for similar purposes to ensure that weapons are not
permitted to be carried into such building by members of the public.” 13
Reading together the above statutory provisions, particularly the italicized language, it is
apparent that the security measures in place must be designed to ensure that no
weapons are carried into the building by the public in order to qualify as adequate
security measures for the purposes of the PFPA. Such measures must include, at a
minimum, security personnel and electronic equipment. The prescreen program that
you describe would not require all members of the public to pass through screening by
security personnel and electronic equipment, but it would essentially become part of the
building’s overall security measures.
We do not believe the legislature intended a mere promise by members of the public not
to carry firearms into a public building to suffice; if that were so, then the previous
system of posting signage and relying upon voluntary compliance by members of the
public to exclude firearms from the building would have been sufficient. But that is
9 L. 2013, Ch. 105, § 2.
10 K.S.A. 2012 Supp. 75-7c10(a).
11 K.S.A. 2015 Supp. 75-7c20(a) (emphasis added).
12 Emphasis added.
13 K.S.A. 2015 Supp. 75-7c20(m)(1) (emphasis added).

Jennifer Magaña
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precisely the sort of system the legislature replaced when it enacted the 2013 legislation
that put into place the current, heightened process of adequate security measures in
order to keep weapons out of a state or municipal building. In our opinion, it would
defeat the purpose of K.S.A. 2015 Supp. 75-7c20(a) and (b) to allow certain members
of the public to bypass security measures based on a promise not to carry weapons into
the building. We therefore opine that such a system would not be considered adequate
security measures for the purposes of the PFPA.
We also believe that security measures that allow non-employees to enter the city hall
through an employee-only entrance would be inconsistent with the PFPA. A city is not
required to provide adequate security measures at each “restricted access entrance,”
only at public entrances. 14 A restricted access entrance is “an entrance that is restricted
to the public and requires a key, keycard, code, or similar device to allow entry to
authorized personnel.” 15
Even if adequate security measures are in place in a city building, a city employee does
not violate the PFPA by carrying a concealed handgun into the building if the employee
carries the handgun through a restricted access entrance. K.S.A. 2015 Supp. 75-
7c20(d) states:
It shall not be a violation of the personal and family protection act for a
person to carry a concealed handgun into a state or municipal building so
long as that person has authority to enter through a restricted access
entrance into such building which provides adequate security measures
and the building is conspicuously posted in accordance with K.S.A. 2014
Supp. 75–7c10, and amendments thereto.
We acknowledge that K.S.A. 2015 Supp. 75-7c20(d) refers to a “person” who has
authority to enter through a restricted access entrance, not an “employee,” and thus it
could be argued that the PFPA allows a city to grant employee-only access privileges to
non-employees. However, because the definition of restricted access entrance refers
only to “authorized personnel,” we believe K.S.A. 2015 Supp. 75-7c20(d) is meant to
apply 	to 	employees 	only, 	not 	the 	general 	public. 	“[E]ven 	when 	various 	statutory
provisions are unambiguous, we may still construe them in pari materia with a view of
reconciling and bringing the provisions into workable harmony.”16 Therefore, we do not
believe the PFPA authorizes a city to allow non-employees to enter the building through
a restricted access entrance as part of its adequate security measures.
To summarize, the purpose of adequate security measures is to ensure that no
weapons are carried into the building “by members of the public.” We believe that the
PFPA does not authorize the use of a pre-screening program such as you describe
because the resulting system would not meet the statutory definition of adequate
security measures. In addition, the PFPA provides special rules for city employees, but
14 K.S.A. 2015 Supp. 75-7c20(b). See also K.S.A. 2015 Supp. 75-7c10(b).
15 K.S.A. 2015 Supp. 75-7c20(m)(3) (emphasis added).
16 Neighbor v. Westar Energy, Inc., 301 Kan. 916, 919 (2015).

Jennifer Magaña
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it does not authorize a city to apply those rules to a member of the public. Because the
program you describe is not an authorized method of regulating concealed carry under
any of the enumerated statutes in K.S.A. 2015 Supp. 75-7c17(a), the program would
run afoul of that statute and would be deemed void.
Furthermore, it is possible that a city pre-screening program that included a criminal
background check and required approval by the mayor or city council members could,
as applied, violate the legislative intent of the PFPA, which is “to ensure that no honest,
law-abiding person who qualifies under the provisions of this act is subjectively or
arbitrarily denied the person’s rights.”17 However, we could not offer an opinion on that
topic without reviewing a list of disqualifying criminal history events or the standards by
which the mayor or city council would determine whether to approve an application,
none of which was supplied to us. But because we believe a pre-screening program
such as you describe is preempted by state law, the issue is moot.
Sincerely,
Derek Schmidt
Attorney General
Sarah Fertig
Assistant Attorney General
DS:AA:SF:sb
17 K.S.A. 2015 Supp. 75-7c17(a).