Some Kansas law enforcers fear proposed gun bill goes too far

Sedgwick County Sheriff Jeff Easter has reservations about officer safety regarding Kansas’ proposed new gun legislation that would allow adults to carry concealed weapons without a permit or training.

If passed, Senate Bill 45 might make it necessary to revamp the training of his 172 patrol deputies, he said, requiring them to be more careful at disturbance calls and traffic stops.

Some law enforcement officers in Kansas don’t agree with his assessment that the law could put deputies in more danger.

Out in Dodge City, Dean Bush, the Ford County sheriff, has been pro-gun and Second Amendment all his life. He says all law enforcement officers operate under the assumption that anybody they approach might have a gun and represent a deadly threat. Johnson County Sheriff Frank Denning said the same.

But even Bush and Denning said they have misgivings about SB 45 because the requirement for training and background checks that go with the current conceal-carry permits will go away.

Easter has heard all the arguments for fewer gun restrictions, including that criminals have guns already.

“In law enforcement, we all believe in the Second Amendment,” he said. “But how far are we taking this now?”

Defending the proposal

Terry Bruce, R-Hutchinson, the state senator who introduced the bill, said Easter’s concerns are not going to become reality.

The proposed law would not apply to someone prohibited by federal or state law from possessing a firearm, such as a convicted felon or someone who is mentally ill. The proposed law also would not apply to people under 21.

“The concerns about gun laws are always expressed in the worst-case scenario,” Bruce said. “‘Will there be more guns? What if a person with a gun loses his temper?’ But none of these concerns ever pan out.

“We looked at all six states which already have laws similar to this, and the concerns don’t pan out.

“And in Kansas, in 2006, gun opponents had the same concerns over conceal-carry. They said there would be bloodshed in the streets. They said gun violence would affect insurance rates.

“It didn’t happen.

“Law-abiding people who carry guns are more law abiding than any other people you can find. Their rate of misuse of firearms is actually lower than the misuse of firearms by law enforcement officers.

“I was a prosecutor for three and a half years. I’m very sensitive about officer safety. An officer needs to come home at night alive. So I’m puzzled about how this changes anything; it’s been my understanding for years that officers going into any situation should act for their own safety as though there’s possibly a gun involved.

“This bill won’t make them less safe.”

Change in tactics

Easter thinks everybody ought to have a gun, at home, for protection.

His brother Kevin, a Sedgwick County sheriff’s officer, was killed in the line of duty in Wichita in 1996, shot by a teen carrying a gun.

Jeff Easter served as a Wichita patrol officer for years. He sometimes chased down gang members on foot, some running with guns drawn. One convicted felon in 1993 pointed a Tech 9 pistol at his chest from a foot away and pulled the trigger; but he’d forgotten to slide a bullet into the firing chamber.

So Easter doesn’t regard himself as clueless about guns or laws.

But SB 45, by eliminating training now required for conceal-carry permits, “puts us in more jeopardy, in my opinion,” he said.

One change he’s studying: whether his deputies might have to train for a more wary approach on all calls. Some civilians won’t like what he says might happen.

For example, in a traffic stop, it would be unusual now for a sheriff’s deputy to tell the motorist to put his hands on the steering wheel, where the deputy can see them.

Now the only time that happens is when the deputies have already seen a gun in the car, or know the car is driven by a felon.

“But now we have to assume that everybody is armed,” Easter said.

Differing views

Randy Henderson, the sheriff in Reno County, felt so strongly against SB 45 that he wrote an opinion piece and sent it to other sheriffs statewide, suggesting they send it to their legislators

Henderson warned that eliminating training is a bad idea. He also wrote that SB 45, if passed, could lead to accidental shootings.

If a civilian, for example, is holding a criminal at gunpoint, and police show up, the only thing police will see is “a man with a gun,” Henderson wrote. If the civilian turns toward the officers with gun to explain what is happening, they might kill him.

“No law enforcement officer ever wants to have to take a life, but in circumstances such as this, I can see it happening,” Henderson wrote.

Other sheriffs also raised concerns.

“I’ve been pro-gun, pro-Second Amendment all my life and never had a problem like others had concerning the current conceal-carry law,” said Bush, the Ford County sheriff. “But I also have concerns, so those thoughts struggle with each other.”

He thinks the current law requiring background checks and training for the conceal-carry permits are good things.

Denning, the Johnson County sheriff, does not think SB 45 will diminish safety for law officers.

“It’s a constitutional carry bill. Several other states have adopted that as law, and I’m not aware of real consequences with it,” he said.

“But my concern is conflicted, due to the fact that we can’t insist on people getting the training they have to get under the current law. As limited as that training is, I think it’s still worthwhile.”

Background checks are currently required to get a permit. That background check, limited as it is, gives officers a tool to sort bad guys from good, he said.

Nelson Mosley, the Wichita Police Department’s interim chief, did not take a position on the proposed change.

But Tom Stolz, who served with the Wichita Police Department for 32 years and retired in 2012 as its deputy chief, said the change could make law enforcement more challenging.

“When you went on a call, there were disturbance calls, and then there were disturbance calls with a gun. And where you parked, and how you walked up for each of those was totally different. Now every disturbance has to be treated like disturbance with a gun,” Stolz said.

“Part of the reason we had gun regulations in the first place is that we used to have the Wild West,” he continued. “And people got tired of that.

“But now we are proposing to undo that.”

Protecting ourselves

It’s not only officers who are at more risk, Easter said.

In law enforcement, new officers are given 16 hours of training on how to hang on to their weapons when bad guys grab for them.

Untrained homeowners trying to protect themselves might be shot with their own weapon.

He hopes his concerns won’t pan out. But he knows this:

Young people used to settle differences with fists. Later, they began to settle arguments with guns.

And now, he said, some people say protecting ourselves from guns means getting more guns.

This story was originally published March 10, 2015 at 8:28 PM with the headline "Some Kansas law enforcers fear proposed gun bill goes too far."