No one wants another Sandy Hook.

But amid gun safety debates, the Kansas Legislature has approved a bill expanding the places people can carry concealed weapons, not reducing them. The bill, which was approved Friday and sent to Gov. Sam Brownback, comes from lawmakers who believe putting guns into the hands of school employees could make schools safer.

Once signed by the governor, the bill would allow school districts to designate teachers and other employees to carry firearms. It’s a policy supported by the National Rifle Association.

“The supporters of this bill would say people who are trained to use guns, people who have passed the background checks and tests to carry a concealed handgun, make places safer,” said Rep. John Wilson, a Lawrence Democrat.

Wilson was among 38 House members who voted against an initial version of the bill, which sailed through the House with 84 votes in favor.

The Kansas Association of School Boards is supporting the law because it would allow local school boards to decide if they want to allow armed employees. However, many in the Lawrence school district consider the idea a step in the wrong direction.

“Certainly I recognize that people are concerned about school safety, but I don’t think that arming more people is the solution to ensuring safe schools,” said school board president Vanessa Sanburn. “There’s going to be a situation where one of the weapons is used on accident, and I think that the likelihood of that happening is much greater than the likelihood of an armed gunman or dangerous person coming to our schools with the intent to harm kids.”

If a student or intruder gains access to a weapon at school, a potentially dangerous situation would escalate quickly, senior Lauren Pauls said.

“I think it’s a terrible idea — being blunt and straightforward,” Pauls said. “There are a lot of things that could go wrong that I think they are not foreseeing.”

For teachers, the idea of carrying a weapon in school is a hard one to swallow. The Kansas National Education Association, the state’s primary teachers union, said guns should be kept locked so students can’t accidentally access them.

“I am trying to be a nurturing educator and packing heat, it just doesn’t seem right for a teaching environment,” said Jay Hundley, the building representative for Lawrence Education Association. “And whether people admit it or not, if you are armed, you do act differently and you do approach people differently when you are armed, whether it is concealed or open.”

Currently, the only armed personnel in Lawrence public schools are the school resource officers who are trained policemen. As policemen, the SROs are required to carry weapons, but they had to get extensive training beforehand.

“I was trained in Lawrence Police Academy,” Lawrence High’s SRO Mike Cobb said. “It’s a 20 week program and almost a whole month is devoted to weapons training, weapon retention, overall safety of weapons, identifying weapons, and we do continuing education every year mandated by the state of Kansas and the federal government.”

While any staff member designated to carry a weapon at school would undergo training, many said weapons in schools should be left to the professionals.

“I don’t think it should be the responsibility of the teacher or your average citizen to be security and law enforcement,” Wilson said. “If anything, we need to consider increasing the budget for our law enforcement personnel. Because of their training, they provide better security than any citizen would be able to.”

In the wake of the December shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the Lawrence school board has discussed how to prevent similar tragedies at home. Increasing the district’s partnership with local police was one of the plans discussed, Sanburn said. Single entrance to buildings and the elimination of portable classrooms are other safety precautions the district plans to take with the recently approved bond dollars.

“Unless we build our schools like prisons, we can’t prevent and make sure that we will completely protect our students, but certainly, there are commonsensical things we can do to ensure safer schools,” Sanburn said.

Even with the passage of the bill, it seems very unlikely the district will ever allow the staff to be armed.

“I don’t think our district is one that would make any major changes to our weapons policy,” Sanburn said. “But certainly, the idea of armed teachers or armed custodians or just a lot of armed people in our schools — even not in our district — is concerning to me.”

Instead of arming teachers, Sanburn said lawmakers should look to other solutions.

“I do think looking at mental health care as a nation and doing a better job of investing in good mental health care for our citizens is another way to really help ensure that tragedies like this wouldn’t happen,” Sanburn said. “Mentally healthy people don’t shoot up elementary or high school kids.”