UPDATE: Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback has allowed a bill designed to keep concealed guns out of public hospitals and mental health centers to become law without his signature.

The governor acted Thursday and broke with gun-rights allies. The new law allows a permanent ban on concealed guns at state hospitals, other public hospitals, community mental health centers, publicly owned nursing homes and indigent clinics.

It also allows the University of Kansas Health System and the university's medical school in Kansas City, Kansas, to ban concealed guns.

A 2013 state law required public buildings to allow concealed guns if those buildings lacked heightened security such as guards or metal detectors. Universities and public health facilities received a four-year exemption due to expire July 1.

-----

Gun-rights advocates and Kansas hospital administrators will learn soon whether public health facilities will have to upgrade security to keep out concealed weapons.

Republican Gov. Sam Brownback had to act Thursday on a bill designed to allow state hospitals, other public hospitals and mental health centers to ban concealed guns without increasing security.

He can sign the measure, veto it, or let it become law without his signature.

Brownback has been a strong gun-rights advocate, and the National Rifle Association and its state allies oppose the bill. But hospital administrators and the University of Kansas Hospital System strongly support it.

A 2013 law requires public health care facilities and universities to allow concealed weapons into buildings that don't have extra security, such as guards or metal detectors, starting in July.

(Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)