TOPEKA - Several retired police officers urged lawmakers on Thursday to allow them to carry concealed weapons to protect themselves and the public if the need arose.

"I have helped put a lot of people in jail and prison," said David Reavis, who retired in 1993 after 31 years on the Lawrence Police Department. "These people do not ever forget who put them there."

Reavis and the other retired officers spoke to the House Federal and State Affairs Committee in favor of a bill that would allow them to carry guns.

An opponent of the plan, Karole Bradford of Inter-Faith Ministries in Wichita, presented written testimony.

"First, this bill is unnecessary," she wrote. "Second, it allows unsupervised individuals to carry concealed weapons. Third, it enables individuals to bypass state and local laws regulating concealed carry of firearms."

Rep. Candy Ruff, a Leavenworth Democrat who is married to a police officer, sponsored the bill. She also was a major supporter of two previous attempts to pass legislation allowing trained and licensed people to carry concealed weapons.

In 1997, the Legislature approved a concealed-carry bill backed by the National Rifle Association. Gov. Bill Graves vetoed the measure. Another bill two years later passed the House but died in the Senate.

Ruff said that this year's bill affected only retired police officers and that there were no plans to change or alter it to expand its scope.

Tom Burgess, an NRA lobbyist, said his organization wasn't taking a position on Ruff's bill and wouldn't comment on whether the NRA would attempt to broaden the measure later.

The bill would require retired officers to qualify with their firearms once a year with either the NRA or certified instructors. Several committee members suggested that they may add a provision to the bill requiring the annual approval by police chiefs or sheriffs as well.

Dennis Shell, a retired Kansas City, Kan., police officer, said his neighbors still saw him as an officer and called on him for help when problems came up.

In some situations, he said, it would be much better to be armed.

Reavis said that to retire from a police department in Kansas, an officer must have at least 20 years on the job. He said the measure would not apply to anyone who left a police department without retiring.

"These men and women have spent years training on how to and when to react to situations involving public safety situations and the enforcement of laws," he said.

Ruff said her bill would not be a good test of where a lawmaker stood on the concealed-gun issue because legislators who opposed the broader legislation in past years might back this year's more restrictive measure.

The bill is H.B. 2796. Bills are available on the Internet at http://kslegislature.org/cgi-bin/index.cgi.

To reach Jim Sullinger, call 1-(785)-354-1388 or send e-mail to jsullinger@kcstar.com.