Kansas Prohibited Places for Concealed Carry

The bottom line

Kansas is a "posted-buildings plus adequate-security" state. That sentence does most of the work, so read it twice. A private business can keep your firearm out by hanging the right Attorney General sign at the door. A government building (state or municipal) cannot keep your firearm out with a sign alone. It must also run armed personnel and electronic detection equipment at every public entrance. If a public building is missing either piece, your concealed carry remains lawful inside it.

That framework makes Kansas one of the more carry-friendly states in the country for daily errands. There is no statutory list of "sensitive places" the way California and New York maintain. There is no general ban on bars, restaurants that serve alcohol, polling places, hospitals open to the public, parks, churches, or shopping centers. The choke points are narrow: properly posted private buildings, properly secured and posted public buildings, K-12 school district buildings, secure areas of jails and courtrooms, and federal property. Everything else is generally on the table for a person who is otherwise lawfully able to possess a firearm. The statutes that build this framework are the Personal and Family Protection Act (K.S.A. 75-7c01 through 75-7c27) and the Criminal Use of Weapons statute (K.S.A. 21-6301).

Where you cannot carry: the short list

Use this checklist as your daily-carry mental model. The detail and statutory citations follow.

1. Properly posted private buildings. Civil consequence only (denial of entry or removal). No criminal charge for entry.
2. Properly posted state or municipal buildings WITH adequate security at every public entrance. A sign by itself is not enough at a public building.
3. K-12 school district buildings. A posted sign is sufficient by itself. No security equipment required.
4. Secure areas of jails, prisons, and law enforcement agencies. Public-access lobbies of the same buildings are still subject to the general public-buildings rule.
5. Courtrooms and ancillary courtrooms when the chief judge has prohibited carry and adequate security plus signage are in place.
6. Federal property governed by federal law: federal buildings, post offices, VA facilities, secure airport areas, military installations, federal courthouses.
7. A few categorical state exemptions where a sign alone keeps you out without security: state-owned medical care facilities, state-owned adult care homes, community mental health centers, indigent health care clinics, the Kansas State School for the Deaf, the Kansas State School for the Blind, and buildings within the KU Medical Center health care district.

That is the full list. If a place is not on it, Kansas concealed carry is generally lawful inside, regardless of what the management thinks of the policy.

Posted private buildings (K.S.A. 75-7c10)

K.S.A. 75-7c10(a) is the operative rule for private buildings. The carrying of a concealed handgun "shall not be prohibited in any building unless such building is conspicuously posted in accordance with rules and regulations adopted by the attorney general." Translated: the default is permission. A private property owner has to take an affirmative step (correct AG-approved sign, correctly placed) before the building is off-limits.

What counts as a proper sign

The Kansas Attorney General publishes the approved signage at ag.ks.gov. There is a separate sign for each combination of concealed-prohibited and open-prohibited; you cannot ban one without the other unless you use the correct sign. The administrative regulations are K.A.R. 16-11-7 (concealed) and K.A.R. 16-13-1 (open).

The AG signage rules in K.S.A. 75-7c10(j) require, at a minimum:

• The sign must be posted at every exterior entrance to the prohibited building.
• The sign must be at adult eye level, not more than 12 inches to the right or left of the entrance.
• The sign must not be obstructed or altered.
• An illegible sign must be replaced immediately.

If the sign is missing from one entrance, the wrong size, hidden behind a planter, faded, or the wrong AG template, the building is not properly posted. A homemade "no guns" sticker is not a proper sign.

Penalty for ignoring the sign

This is the part that surprises people. Under K.S.A. 75-7c10(f)(1), carrying past a properly posted sign is not a criminal offense. The only consequence available to the property owner is to deny you entry or ask you to leave. A licensee or carrier who refuses to leave after being asked may be charged with criminal trespass under general Kansas trespass law, but the act of carrying past the sign is not by itself a crime.

That distinction matters in practice. It does not give you license to ignore the sign; respect the property owner and either disarm or do not enter. But the worst-case outcome at a properly posted private business is that you are escorted out, not handcuffed.

Building does not include the parking lot

K.S.A. 75-7c10(h)(2) defines "building" to exclude any structure or area designated for the parking of motor vehicles. The signage rule reaches the building itself, not the lot, so a posted business cannot use the sign to make you disarm before you reach the front door. This carve-out reinforces the parallel rule for employers.

Private employers and the parking-lot rule

K.S.A. 75-7c10(b) lets private employers prohibit concealed carry by personnel policy while the employee is on the premises or engaged in the duties of employment. But the employer cannot prohibit possession of a handgun in the employee's private vehicle, even when the vehicle is parked on the employer's lot. Your locked car is your portable safe.

Liability shield for posted private businesses

K.S.A. 75-7c10(c) gives a private entity that posts proper signs and provides adequate security a liability shield for acts of carriers inside. The mirror provision shields a private entity that does not post and lets carriers in. The legislature wrote both rules so that property owners would not be pushed in either direction by tort risk.

Public buildings: the adequate-security rule (K.S.A. 75-7c20)

This is where Kansas departs sharply from most states. K.S.A. 75-7c20 says a state or municipal building cannot prohibit concealed carry just by hanging a sign. The building must combine proper signage with what the statute calls "adequate security measures." The rule has two faces. K.S.A. 75-7c20(a) governs public areas of a public building. K.S.A. 75-7c20(b) governs the public building in its entirety. In both cases the operative trigger is the same: adequate security plus signage, or no exclusion at all.

What counts as adequate security

K.S.A. 75-7c20(m)(1) defines the term and the definition has teeth. "Adequate security measures" means the use of:

• Electronic equipment at public entrances to detect weapons (metal detectors, magnetometer wands, similar devices), AND
• Armed personnel at those public entrances to restrict the carrying of weapons into the building or public area.

Both pieces are required. Metal detectors with no armed personnel are not adequate security. Armed personnel waving people through with no detection equipment are not adequate security. The statute also expressly authorizes (but does not require) gun lockers at the entrance for storing the weapons of lawful carriers.

The statute reaches every public access entrance. If the courthouse has a metal detector and an armed deputy at the front door but a side door propped open for the smoking break, the building does not have adequate security under the statute. The Kansas Attorney General has issued opinions on these technicalities since 2013, and the consistent message is that anything less than full coverage of public entrances fails the test.

State or municipal building, defined

K.S.A. 75-7c20(m)(7) defines the term that triggers the whole statute. A "state or municipal building" is a building owned or leased by a state or municipal entity. It does not include:

• A building owned by the state or a municipality but leased to a private entity.
• A building held in title by the state solely for revenue-bond financing.
• The state capitol (covered separately below).
• School districts (school districts are excluded from the definition of "municipality" for this purpose).

AG Opinion 2013-21 addressed an edge case: an office leased by the state in a privately owned multi-tenant office building is not a "state or municipal building." An office leased by the state in a strip mall is. AG Opinion 2013-20 addressed another common question: a building used as a polling place does not become a public building during the election. The election itself does nothing to the carry rules.

Restricted-access entrances

K.S.A. 75-7c20(d) creates a workaround. If a public building has adequate security at all public entrances and is properly posted, an authorized person with a restricted-access credential (employee, or a non-employee who has been issued a photo ID, signed a notarized affidavit, and passed a background check) may enter through a restricted-access entrance and carry concealed inside. CCHL holders are exempt from the additional records check on the theory that they have already been vetted.

Permanent exemptions to the adequate-security rule

K.S.A. 75-7c20(k) lists state buildings that may exclude carry without providing adequate security. A sign at the door is enough. The list:

• Buildings on the grounds of the Kansas State School for the Deaf.
• Buildings on the grounds of the Kansas State School for the Blind.
• State or municipal-owned medical care facilities (K.S.A. 65-425).
• State or municipal-owned adult care homes (K.S.A. 39-923).
• Community mental health centers (K.S.A. 19-4001 et seq.).
• Indigent health care clinics (K.S.A. 65-7402).
• Any building owned or leased by the University of Kansas Hospital Authority, or any building within the Wyandotte County health care district.

These categorical carve-outs reflect a legislative judgment that certain populations (children at the schools for the deaf and blind, patients at state hospitals and care homes) warrant a lower threshold for exclusion. The KU Medical Center carve-out came in via a 2017 amendment.

Secure areas of jails and law enforcement agencies

K.S.A. 75-7c20(g) preserves the ability of corrections facilities, jails, and law enforcement agencies to prohibit any firearm (concealed or not) in secure areas of their buildings. Public-access lobbies of those same buildings remain subject to the general adequate-security rule. The lobby of the police station is treated like any other public area until the agency installs detection equipment and posts armed personnel.

Courtrooms

K.S.A. 75-7c20(h) lets the chief judge of each judicial district prohibit carry in courtrooms and ancillary courtrooms, provided adequate security and proper signage are in place. The same building's general public areas (lobbies, hallways outside courtrooms, clerk's offices) are governed by the general public-buildings rule unless the entire building meets the adequate-security standard.

Counties cannot opt out

AG Opinion 2013-11 closed a loophole that some counties tried to open in 2013 and 2014. A county cannot enact a charter resolution to exempt itself from the Personal and Family Protection Act. The statute is uniform statewide, and county charter resolutions cannot rewrite it.

The state capitol: a different rule (K.S.A. 75-7c21)

The state capitol building in Topeka is its own creature under Kansas law. K.S.A. 75-7c20(m)(7)(B) excludes it from the definition of "state or municipal building" entirely, so the adequate-security rule does not reach it. But that does not mean the capitol is open to anyone with a firearm. K.S.A. 75-7c21 is a stand-alone rule with its own carry conditions.

Under K.S.A. 75-7c21(a), an individual may carry a concealed handgun in the state capitol if the individual:

1. Is not prohibited from possessing a firearm under federal or state law, AND
2. Is either (a) 21 years of age or older, OR (b) holds a valid Kansas provisional license under K.S.A. 75-7c03, OR (c) holds a valid out-of-state license to carry a concealed handgun that Kansas recognizes under K.S.A. 75-7c03.

The age condition matters for the 18-to-20 cohort. Permitless carry in Kansas generally requires a person to be 21 or older. The state capitol carve-out keeps that age floor in place but adds the provisional-license route for 18-to-20 year-olds, which mirrors the general statutory pattern.

The other half of the rule is unwritten in 75-7c21 itself but follows from the statute's affirmative authorization of only concealed carry, plus the general public-buildings framework at K.S.A. 75-7c20 and Capitol-security authority: open carry is not permitted in the capitol. The Kansas Attorney General's concealed-carry FAQ confirms this in plain language. The capitol allows concealed carry by qualifying persons; it does not allow open carry of handguns. (Note: K.S.A. 21-6309 governs criminal discharge of a firearm; it is NOT the Capitol carry statute.)

K-12 schools (K.S.A. 21-6301(a)(11))

K-12 schools sit outside the public-buildings framework because school districts are excluded from the definition of "municipality" in K.S.A. 75-7c20(m)(3). The controlling rule is the criminal-use-of-weapons statute, K.S.A. 21-6301(a)(11), which makes it a class B nonperson select misdemeanor to possess any firearm "in or on any school property or grounds upon which is located a building or structure used by a unified school district or an accredited nonpublic school for student instruction or attendance or extracurricular activities of pupils enrolled in kindergarten or any of the grades one through 12."

The penalty grade is in K.S.A. 21-6301(b)(3). It also reaches "any regularly scheduled school sponsored activity or event" under (a)(11), and refusing to surrender or remove a firearm when directed by school personnel or law enforcement is a separate class A nonperson misdemeanor under (a)(12).

The CCHL and provisional-license carve-out (K.S.A. 21-6301(j)(5))

This is the practical rule for licensees. K.S.A. 21-6301(j)(5) says (a)(11) does not apply to "possession of a concealed handgun by an individual who is not prohibited from possessing a firearm under either federal or state law, and who is either: (A) 21 years of age or older; or (B) possesses a valid provisional license issued pursuant to K.S.A. 75-7c03 ... or a valid license to carry a concealed handgun issued by another jurisdiction that is recognized in this state."

That carve-out matters in two specific ways:

1. A licensee may be on school grounds. "Grounds" here means parking lots, sidewalks, and outdoor areas. Signage on the school's grounds prohibiting firearms is "improper" under Kansas law (per the AG's FAQ), although it is not itself unlawful for the school to post.
2. A licensee may NOT carry into the school building. Under K.S.A. 75-7c10(d)(1), the school district's governing body may permit a legally qualified employee to carry inside school buildings, but only the district may grant that permission. A non-employee licensee carrying into a school district building is violating the building's posting under 75-7c10 and faces civil exclusion. If the building does not have a sign, the licensee may carry in. The criminal carve-out in 21-6301(j)(5) reaches grounds; the building itself is governed by the standard 75-7c10 sign rule, and most K-12 buildings are posted.

The federal Gun-Free School Zones Act (18 U.S.C. § 922(q))

Federal law adds a 1,000-foot zone around every K-12 school. Carrying within that zone is a federal offense unless the carrier holds a state-issued license to carry concealed. Kansas CCHL holders and recognized out-of-state license holders are exempt from the federal zone restriction; permitless carriers, including Kansas residents who are otherwise lawfully carrying without a CCHL, are not exempt. AG Opinion 2016-5 specifically warned that a public school employee without a license violates the federal Gun-Free School Zones Act when carrying concealed in a school zone.

That federal rule is the single biggest reason a Kansas resident who carries on a daily basis should still consider obtaining a CCHL. Kansas has enough K-12 schools that the 1,000-foot zones cover a meaningful share of any city. A CCHL converts that federal exposure into a clean exemption.

Statutory carve-outs in K.S.A. 21-6301(j)

K.S.A. 21-6301(j) lists four other situations where the (a)(11) school-grounds prohibition does not apply:

1. Possession of a firearm in connection with a firearms safety course of instruction or firearms education course approved by the school.
2. Possession specifically authorized in writing by the superintendent of the unified school district or the chief administrator of an accredited nonpublic school.
3. Possession of a firearm secured in a motor vehicle by a parent, guardian, custodian, or authorized agent who is delivering or collecting a student.
4. Possession of a firearm secured in a motor vehicle by a registered voter on school grounds that contain a polling place, for the purpose of voting during polling hours on an election day.

The motor-vehicle carve-outs (3) and (4) are practical: a parent with a firearm in a locked car on a school pickup line is not committing the (a)(11) offense.

Higher education: universities and colleges

Public universities and community colleges in Kansas operate under the general K.S.A. 75-7c20 rule. After the temporary statutory exemption expired on July 1, 2017, Board of Regents institutions could no longer ban concealed carry on campus by policy alone. They can ban concealed carry from a campus building only by combining adequate security with proper signage at every public entrance. Most academic buildings do not meet that standard, so most academic buildings are open to lawful concealed carry.

The Board of Regents has issued a system-wide policy that imposes carry conditions on its campuses: carriers must be 21 or older, the firearm must be fully concealed, and the safety must be engaged. AG Opinion 2014-6 confirmed that a community college may ban open carry on campus and may ban concealed carry in buildings with adequate security, but cannot prohibit concealed carry on the campus grounds. AG Opinion 2016-15 added that a state university cannot defeat the rule by designating an entire building as "restricted access."

Practical takeaways for licensees on campus:

• Campus grounds: generally lawful for concealed carry by anyone otherwise qualified.
• Academic buildings without adequate security at every public entrance: generally lawful for concealed carry.
• Buildings with metal detectors and armed personnel at every public entrance, plus signage: off-limits.
• K-12 satellite or partnership locations on the same campus: governed by the K-12 rule, not the higher-ed rule.

Federal off-limits places

Kansas state law cannot override federal property rules. K.S.A. 75-7c10(i) makes the limit explicit: "Nothing in this act shall be construed to authorize the carrying or possession of a handgun where prohibited by federal law." The categories that matter for daily carry:

• Federal facilities under 18 U.S.C. § 930. Federal courthouses, federal office buildings, IRS offices, Social Security offices, federal agency headquarters. The signage requirement is federal, not state.
• U.S. Postal Service property (post offices). Governed by USPS regulations covering the building and parking lot. Federal courts of appeals have split on the parking-lot rule; the safe assumption is that the lot is also off-limits.
• U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs facilities. VA hospitals, clinics, regional offices, and national cemeteries are off-limits under VA regulations.
• Military installations under federal regulations and DOD policy. Posts, bases, and recruiting stations.
• Federal courthouses under 18 U.S.C. § 930(e). Strict prohibition with limited exceptions.
• Secure (sterile) areas of airports under federal aviation security law. The check-in lobby is not the sterile area; the security checkpoint marks the boundary.
• National parks: federal law since 2010 generally allows carry to the extent the law of the state where the park sits allows it, but federal facilities within the park (visitor centers, ranger stations) are federal facilities under § 930.

When in doubt at a federal property, look for the posted notice required by federal law. Federal facility signs are usually black-on-white, posted at the entrance, and reference 18 U.S.C. § 930.

Quick reference: the public versus private decision tree

Penalties, in plain language

The thing students get wrong most often is conflating the civil and criminal regimes.

• Posted private building (K.S.A. 75-7c10(f)(1)): No criminal penalty for entering while carrying. The owner may deny entry or order you out. If you refuse to leave, the owner may call law enforcement and you may face general criminal trespass charges, but the carry itself is not criminalized.
• Posted public building with adequate security (K.S.A. 75-7c20): No criminal penalty for the carry itself. Building security will direct you to leave the firearm in your vehicle, store it in a locker if available, or leave the building. Refusing to comply moves you into criminal-trespass territory.
• Secure areas of jails, prisons, and courtrooms: Statutory prohibitions with criminal teeth, including contraband statutes that carry felony exposure.
• K-12 school grounds without licensee carve-out (K.S.A. 21-6301(a)(11)): Class B nonperson select misdemeanor for unlicensed carriers, including a Kansas resident who is permitlessly carrying without holding a CCHL.
• Federal facility, post office, VA, military installation, airport sterile area: Federal misdemeanor or felony depending on the statute. State law is irrelevant.
• Refusing to surrender or remove a firearm at a school when directed (K.S.A. 21-6301(a)(12)): Class A nonperson misdemeanor.

The pattern is consistent: Kansas state law generally treats prohibited carry as a civil exclusion problem, not a criminal problem, except for K-12 schools and secure government areas. Federal law is where the real criminal exposure lives.

The licensee's edge

A Kansas CCHL or recognized out-of-state license is not legally required to carry concealed in Kansas. Constitutional carry covers persons 21 and older who are lawfully able to possess a firearm. But a license unlocks four practical advantages tied directly to prohibited places:

1. Federal Gun-Free School Zones Act exemption. The 1,000-foot zone around every K-12 school disappears for licensees.
2. State capitol access for 18-to-20 year-olds. A provisional license under K.S.A. 75-7c03 lets the under-21 cohort carry in the capitol.
3. Reciprocity in restricted states. Kansas recognizes a long list of out-of-state licenses, and Kansas issues a license that roughly thirty other states recognize.
4. Restricted-access entrance authority. A CCHL holder seeking restricted-access privileges in a posted public building skips the additional criminal-records check.

For an instructor or daily carrier whose route runs near schools or who travels out of state, the license still pays for itself.

Reading the signs

If you carry every day in Kansas, learn to recognize the AG-approved signs at a glance. There are four templates: a concealed-prohibited sign (K.S.A. 75-7c10, K.A.R. 16-11-7), an open-prohibited sign (K.S.A. 75-7c24, K.A.R. 16-13-1), a combined sign that prohibits both, and an exempt state-or-municipal-building sign for public buildings that meet K.S.A. 75-7c20(k) or that have installed adequate security.

A handwritten sign, an online sticker, a "no firearms" decal that does not match the AG template, or a sign placed three feet above the door: each fails the statutory and regulatory requirements. Property owners who get the sign wrong have not effectively posted, and the building defaults back to the rule that carry "shall not be prohibited." If the owner has not done the affirmative work, the lawful carrier wins.