imported post
IA_farmboy wrote:
Does it prove the IGO amendment/bill didn't have the votes? That is real close and, depending on how the absent votes would have fallen, they were within three to six votes to make it happen. It is quite possible that those votes could have come to be if this compromise bill failed for some reason.
Yes, I realize that a fail of "shall issue" and a passage of "constitutional carry" would require a change of heart for members of the House. Such things are not unheard of. Also, the failure of the amendment may have been planned to avoid killing the bill. Adding any amendments would have required continued debate, and another vote, in the Senate. Senators may have just killed it so they could go home if it came to that, the session had already ran beyond their self imposed deadline and I'm sure a number of senators wanted to be home for Easter.
The thin margin of failure for a constitutional carry law means that there is certainly a possibility for it to pass in the near future. Make this an issue you bring up to candidates when given the opportunity. Since all members of the Iowa House come up for election this year, and there were a number of narrow votes in recent memory, this issue could be of high priority.
Rather than giving IGO a poke in the ribs over this perhaps your energies could be better spent on advocating for its passage in the future.
Oh, since such a narrow vote would not have the support to override a governor veto the issue of constitutional carry should be brought up to gubernatorial candidates as well.
So IGO was perfectly willing to leave people of Iowa that happened to reside in the red and yellow issuance counties in the darkness for years so that their "pure" bill (which is not so pure) would pass in..say..2015? They kept saying "Kill the NRA/IowaCarry.org bill", over and over again. Not "Let's get shall-issue passed and then for constitutional carry later", which is how it worked in Alaska and Arizona, but they flat out said "Vermont carry or bust" and anyone who opposed the bill is "anti-gun" and "sellouts". They could have stayed neutral and went after "Alaska/Arizona" style carry after some fixes to the law.
IGO's siege mentality is stuck in the 1990's, where passing a shall-issue bill loaded up with restrictions (which Iowa's new law doesn't have, btw) meant that NOTHING was going to be fixed for a minimum of a decade or more. This was true up until the last three or four years. Now, the anti-gun forces in most of the states are in full retreat. You have southern states who had numerous restrictions against where guns could be carried starting to repeal them. Rather than follow this recent understanding and observance of the momentum of the gun rights movement, they are stuck in the mid-1990's. They ignore recent history. Will they attack ICO in the future when they work with the legislature to perhaps repeal or change the law for the better, because it won't go directly to "Vermont carry" fast enough? I'm willing to bet yes given their previous actions.
IGO was willing to scuttle any forward progress for reasons currently unknown. Their amendment (and their bill), despite the criticism of ICO's bill for "banning anyone under 21 from getting a permit", would not have fixed with IGO's bill
because the Iowa laws against possession of a handgun by those under 21 unless under the direction of their parents in sight was not changed by the IGO bill. What if the kid's an orphan? or kicked out of their home at 18 for whatever reason? The IGO bill would not have fixed that situation.
Alexander Dorr (one of the plaintiff litigants in the
Dorr v. Weber litigation, and who happens to be the younger brother of IGO's Executive Director) would not have been able to possess a firearm unless under the supervision of his parents, even if he had a non-pro PTCW.
Why this wasn't brought up and challenged in the
Dorr litigation is beyond me, because if Alexander had a falling out with his parents in any form, poof, his right to carry goes away even with that vaunted NP PTCW, and even if he and his father Paul won the lawsuit, he still wouldn't be able to carry effectively as an adult, as under 21 possession law was not challenged.
Someone explain this situation to me. Someone explain to me why IGO attacked ICO repeatedly over their failure to keep the NP PTCW to 18, when their bill did NOTHING to address the possession ban? Someone explain to me why both the IGO bill and the litigation filing by Mohrman/Kaardal law group in the
Dorr case continually keep missing this critical law which still denies Alexander and other 18-21 year olds their right to possess and carry handguns for their personal protection even if they have that vaunted permit? I am not particularly impressed with half-assed bills and litigation which don't address the problem that you attack the other side for.
-Gray
Also:
Dorr v. Weber for anyone who wants to read at least part of what I'm talking about.