WICHITA, Kan. _ A Kansas lawmaker left a loaded firearm in a committee room at the Capitol in Topeka on Tuesday.
Republican Rep. Willie Dove of Bonner Springs acknowledged in an interview Thursday that he removed a loaded .380 handgun from his ankle during a meeting of the House Education Committee two days earlier, placed it in his desk and left the room without retrieving it.
"Was it loaded? Yes," Dove told reporters.
A secretary found the weapon and turned it over to Capitol police immediately, Dove said. About 10 minutes after the meeting, a Capitol worker approached him and asked if he had forgotten something.
Dove realized that he had left his weapon and was informed by Capitol police that it had been placed in lock-up. He got it back the following morning.
"That's the end of it," Dove said when asked whether Capitol police would take further action.
A member of the Capitol police would not comment Thursday, referring all questions to Tom Day, director of Legislative Administrative Services.
"Capitol Police had a conversation with him. That's it as far as I know," Day said.
"It means I'm going to get me a shoulder holster," Dove said when asked if he would change his behavior going forward. He said he had removed the weapon from his ankle because the ankle had begun to swell.
"I unclamped it from my right leg and pushed it back and when I got up I just forgot it," Dove said.
The Legislature began allowing concealed firearms in the Capitol in 2014. Dove said he regularly carries a concealed weapon and that this was the first time something like this has happened.
Under the same law that opened the Capitol to firearms, Kansas universities will have to open their campuses to firearms in July. The disclosure that Dove left his weapon in a committee room occurred the same day as a hearing on a bill to indefinitely exempt colleges from that policy.
Supporters of exempting colleges say that allowing firearms on campus will create an unsafe environment.
"God, I'm glad I'm not on that panel," Dove said.
Kansas stopped requiring a license to conceal and carry in 2015. Dove said he obtained a license before that law went into effect.
He said he had no comment on whether this had created an unsafe environment in the Capitol.
"It was unfortunate. I usually carry it. My ankle was swelling and I unstrapped myself, which I hardly ever do, and that was it," Dove said.
