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Barbara and Paul Cook make a hobby of visiting state capitols, so they didn't think twice about going through metal detectors to enter the Illinois Statehouse on Monday.
"They have them all over," said Barbara Cook of South Holland as she rested on a bench near the Capitol rotunda. "We've been to 37 capitols, and I can't think of any that didn't have them."
But Illinois didn't adopt such precautions until the fatal shooting of an unarmed security guard a year ago today, after years of debate over whether metal detectors and X-ray machines would limit access to public government buildings.
Since the weeks after the shooting, those devices have greeted visitors at three entrances to the Capitol and at other public buildings near the Statehouse.
"It's a balancing act to make sure...