Is the Statehouse unsafe?

COLUMBUS

A half a million people, give or take a few thousand, pass through the doors of the Ohio Statehouse each year.

The number includes Ohio families, out-of-state visitors, union protesters and roughly 90,000 school children, who trek to Capitol Square on buses to see firsthand how laws are made.

All of those people walk in through unlocked doors, during regular business hours.

They might see a State Highway patrolman or woman standing nearby. But they don’t have to walk through metal detectors or place their book bags and purses on conveyor belts to be scanned for firearms or explosives.

It’s a pleasant respite from in this age of shot-through-the-head terrorists and groping airport security officers.

Other state offices have ample security in place. You can’t just stroll into the downtown buildings that house the Ohio Supreme Court, the Secretary of State or the Environmental Protection Agency, for example.

No entry

The security is over the top in some buildings, with staffers acting like you’re a escaped convict if you dare seek entry into office space paid for by pubic tax dollars.

But the Statehouse is the People’s House.

Its door are generally open to the people (unless there are too many people already inside, in which case the doors are locked, but that’s another story).

It’s one of the few places you can go to watch the politically powerful make decisions that will affect how you live in Ohio.

The setup, however, does prompt one to ask whether the buildings that contain offices for lawmakers, the governor and other state officials should have more security measures in place.

Gov. John Kasich is among those who think more should be done to ensure the safety of Statehouse dwellers.

“I’ve expressed my concern about this and will continue to and hopefully we’ll get some better security,” the governor told reporters last week.

That’s not to say that anyone is in imminent danger.

The State Highway Patrol has a post in the building, and officers patrol the hallways throughout the day. Also, the advisory board has portable metal detectors and other security devices on site and ready to deploy, if necessary.

Still, the governor is voicing an opinion held by many, and the Capitol Square Review and Advisory Board is reviewing security measures in place.

“We don’t want something to happen in the Statehouse,” Kasich said. “We have families and kids and school groups. I think it’s right to keep it open, not to make it a big deal but to make sure that we have better security here.”

Is it time to put permanent metal detectors in the Statehouse?

If the answer is “yes,” it’s a sad commentary on the direction of our society.

Marc Kovac is The Vindicators’s Statehouse correspondent. Email him at mkovac@dixcom.com or on Twitter at OhioCapitalBlog.