opinion

'Gun-friendly' Iowa could allow permit-free weapon carrying, kill last few restrictions

Here’s an answer to the state of Iowa’s budget problem: Sell naming rights for the Iowa State Capitol. Smith & Wesson or Glock should be willing to pony up a tidy sum, given all the extra sales they can expect thanks to the efforts of Republican lawmakers.

In the span of just a few hours in the Iowa Senate last week, GOP senators advanced proposals to dramatically expand the freedom to carry without pesky permits and curtail the government’s ability to impose restrictions.

Yes, they’re trying to expand gun rights even more than they already did last year with the bill that made Iowa the “one of the friendliest states in America for gun owners.” That’s how the Washington Post described it, anyway.

Last year’s legislation made it fine and dandy to carry guns in courthouses and the state Capitol. It allowed children to use handguns under adult supervision. It allowed a gun owner to shoot someone in public if he felt threatened by the person, even if it turned out there was no actual threat.

Less than a year after winning most extensive gun-rights legislation in Iowa history, the gun lobby thinks the state needs a constitutional amendment to protect gun rights. Go figure.

More: Firearms advocates seek to add right to bear arms to Iowa Constitution

Never mind that Iowa’s laws are subject to the U.S. Constitution, which last time I checked still contained a Second Amendment right to bear arms. The proposed state amendment would give extra-extra protection for the right to keep, possess, transport, carry and use arms “for all legitimate purposes.” It goes on to promise that “any and all restrictions of this right shall be subject to strict scrutiny.”

The proposed amendment, Senate Study Bill 3155, doesn’t say what “legitimate” means. How about selling guns and ammo from vending machines in bars?

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It doesn’t define “strict scrutiny,” which to me sounds like an engraved invitation for lawsuits aplenty. It doesn’t even define “arms,” which raised questions at a Senate subcommittee meeting about the proposal’s effect on laws banning machine guns and the like.

Amending the state constitution isn’t an overnight process. If the proposed amendment passes both the House and Senate this year, it would need approval by the next General Assembly. The earliest it would likely appear on the general election ballot for a public vote would be in November 2020.

Maybe that’s why the gun lobby is pushing a second bill that would strip away numerous restrictions for buying and carrying a weapon.

Senate File 2106 would eliminate the need for a permit to carry a loaded weapon. It would do away with the state permit to buy guns, too. It also would make sure that lots more people who carry weapons can carry them in schools and on college campuses. Gun owners from out-of-state could carry them in Iowa using whatever permit their state requires, if any.

But people would still need a federal permit and get a background check to buy a gun, right? Of course! Well, maybe. If the sale was from a federally licensed firearms dealer, probably. Lawmakers were decidedly vague on this point.

But background checks are overrated anyway, according to the gun lobbyists.

A background check "does not stop violent crime … what does stop violent crime is allowing more law-abiding citizens to have access to firearms,” Aaron Dorr, executive director of the Iowa Gun Owners Association said, after citing a list of mass shootings in which the murderer had passed a background check.

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Oh, it would still be illegal for felons, domestic abusers and people with other disqualifications to buy and carry weapons. Not that anyone would know who he is when he walks into the courthouse armed, with no need to show a permit, gunning for the judge who signed his wife's no-contact order.

Sen. Mark Chelgren, R-Ottumwa, sponsored a bill this year to require judges to pay for extra security out of their own paychecks if they wanted to ban guns from courthouses. It still hadn’t passed the committee deadline to be considered this year. But it’s just a matter of time.

More: Gun debate prompts Iowa lawmaker to seek deduction of security costs from chief judges' paychecks

Or here’s another idea, also thanks to Chelgren: A proposed constitutional amendment making all Iowa adults members of the state militia! Senate Joint Resolution 2004 provides that the militia “shall be armed, equipped and trained as the General Assembly may provide.”

That’s about 2.3 million adults for this militia, which doesn’t currently exist but could be required to go armed any time the Legislature deems necessary. That’s a whole lot of gun sales for our good friend Sig Sauer.

Hey, maybe next time lawmakers need to gild the golden dome, they can replace the expensive gold leaf with shiny, brass bullet casings. Iowans can just pick them up from their neighborhood streets and school playgrounds and recycle them.