Capitol gets security upgrade

OLYMPIA – If you visit the state Capitol in Olympia, you can no longer bring scissors. Or golf clubs. Or a screwdriver. Or any piece of metal, in fact, if it’s longer than 3 inches. All those things will be caught by the newly installed metal detectors and X-ray machines, and you’ll have to leave them at the door.

You are, however, welcome to bring along your revolver or semiautomatic pistol. Because of a 19-year-old state law that was little-noticed until recently, it turns out that the state – despite $770,000 invested so far in new security machines and nearly 40 new security staffers – cannot stop citizens with concealed weapons permits from bringing their guns into the Capitol.

“It’s like life insurance,” said 78-year-old Merton Cooper, who toted his small 9 mm pistol on a recent visit to the statehouse. “You have it just in case.”

“We would prefer that weapons not be brought into the building,” said Dan Eikum, a 30-year Washington State Patrol veteran hired recently to head up Capitol security. “That set aside, if a person has a concealed weapon and they choose to bring it in, they’ll be contacted at the entrance. A trooper will check them for their permit and identification. After that’s done, we’ll let them on their way.”

Some lawmakers say it’s absurd to spend a million dollars a year on the new security system and turn away scissors while waving through people with guns. But since 1990, at least five efforts to make the Capitol a gun-free zone have failed – due partly to resistance from pistol-packing lawmakers.

“I’m not going to name names, because I can’t be sure who it is, but there are several members of the House and several members of the Senate who carry,” said Rep. Alex Wood, D-Spokane. “And they made sure they can still bring their weapons in.”

Adding security

Rep. Steve Kirby, D-Tacoma, said it doesn’t bother him if permitted gun owners bring their weapons with them. They could legally bring the guns into a McDonald’s or mall, he said. Why not the Capitol, a public building?

Both Wood and Kirby were among the lawmakers who voted against installing the four X-ray machines and six metal detectors. They were narrowly overruled, and the machines – rented, instead of purchased – were installed during the recent remodel of the Capitol. Numerous video cameras were also set up throughout the building.

The two lawmakers feel that the Capitol, although a state landmark, isn’t likely to be a terrorist target. Bad things do happen in capitols – in September an Illinois man shot and killed an unarmed security guard at the Capitol there – but Kirby said the state has good security already for those sorts of situations. Armed state troopers are on the Capitol grounds at all times, as they have been for years.

“This (new equipment) is all done in the name of keeping us safe from terrorists,” said Kirby. “I think there are some people in the state Legislature who are a little over-impressed with their importance if they think terrorists are going to come in and kill us all.”

Terrorism experts echoed that thought during a National Governors Association meeting in Boise two years ago. During a panel discussion on security, they said that a McDonald’s – as a symbol of American culture and wealth – is more likely to be targeted than a state capitol.

Still, Washington is hardly alone in tightening security at its “people’s house.” Before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, only two state capitols – Alabama and Georgia – routinely used metal detectors, according to the Stateline.org news service.

Within a few months, at least 15 states had installed metal detectors at their statehouse doors. In Boise, officials closed off streets and barricaded the Capitol with concrete barriers to stop potential vehicle bombers. Those streets were later reopened and the barriers replaced with concrete flowerpots.

In Kansas, the state limited access to the Capitol grounds, restricted traffic and reduced parking after the attacks – only to loosen those restrictions several months later. It was just too restrictive, the governor there said at the time.

In Washington, Kirby worries that the main effect of the security machines will be a massive logjam of people trying to get in and out. On a typical day, the building is teeming with hundreds of visiting schoolchildren and tourists, and hundreds more staffers, lawmakers, reporters and lobbyists.

“There are a number of us in the Legislature who believe that this idea is really stupid,” Kirby said. “The only thing I think we’re going to be able to do is let the process collapse. It’s going to have to be an impossible situation before certain people will decide that this just doesn’t work.”

Passing security

The person trying to make sure it will work is Eikum. He said that the screeners will work quickly and that “express lanes” have been set up for people who often rush in and out of the building: staff, lobbyists, reporters and lawmakers. Last week, he said, the staff got 150 schoolchildren through security in six minutes.

“The world has changed. Our environment has changed,” he said. “But we’re trying to make things as friendly as we can.”

To test that, Merton Cooper and his pistol showed up unannounced on a recent rainy weekday in Olympia. It was a few days after “Bill of Rights Day,” celebrated on a bumper sticker on the window of his Toyota. His wife, Myrtle, tagged along.

The elderly couple made their way up to the metal detector, said hi to the guards, and then Merton laid his gun case on a table.

“That’s an unloaded firearm,” he said.

The security guard was unfazed.

“Is it?” he said.

After a consultation with several guards – Cooper wanted to be assured that letting the gun be inspected wouldn’t be construed as illegally displaying or threatening anyone – the gun was X-rayed and Cooper was free to wander the marble halls.

The retired shipyard worker said he carries the weapon so that he can help put a stop to problems that unarmed people would be powerless to deal with. He said he understands why the state has chosen to ban guns in prisons, taverns, schools and other institutions. But the Capitol is the seat of state government.

“In jails you have criminals, in bars you have drunks,” he said. “In mental institutions you have a bunch of nuts and in the schools you have the uneducated. Which of those categories are politicians in?”