By Isabella Senno
House File 517, a bill backed by the National Rifle Association dealing with several aspects of Iowa gun ownership and gun owners’ rights is slated to pass and head to Gov. Terry Branstad sometime within the next week.
The bill contains two sections that are hot-button issues. One is that if passed, the bill would remove the duty to retreat for Iowa citizens, creating what is more commonly known as a “stand-your-ground” portion of Iowa law. It would also allow concealed weapons to be carried inside the Capitol.
Additionally, the bill broadens gun rights for children, allow gun owners to go a full five years without a background check, and protects the confidentiality of weapon-permit holders.
“I’m extremely pleased that we’ve been able to move this legislation through in a bipartisan fashion,” Rep. Matt Windschitl, R-MIssouri Valley, said. “It’s not everything that I personally as a Second Amendment advocate would like to see signed into law, but I also understand that this is still the most monumental piece of Second
Amendment legislation the state has ever seen. I’m proud that it’s going down to the governor’s desk, and I’m sincerely hopeful that he will sign it here sometime this weekend.”
The stand-your-ground provision would strengthen Iowa gun owners’ right to use justifiable deadly force if they feel their life or safety is threatened.
There is an amendment in the bill that states anyone using deadly force in self-defense is required to inform law-enforcement officials at the scene and is banned from destroying evidence or threatening witnesses. Windshitl. this is meant to stop criminals from gaining protection under the law.
“We … very carefully crafted [the bill] to say that if you’re not engaged in illegal activity that you have no duty to retreat,” Windshitl said. “So for the concerns that some people brought up about criminals being able to use this as a type of defense, if they’re engaged in criminal activity … they have no opportunity to then claim the stand-your-ground defense if there’s evidence there pointing to the fact that they were engaged in illegal activity.”
According to a 2015 report released by a task force assembled by the American Bar Association, states with stand-your-ground laws have increased homicide rates. This has some of the bill’s opponents, such as Rep. Liz Bennett, D-Cedar Rapids, concerned about the same happening in Iowa.
“It seems to be a misconception in Iowa that you cannot protect yourself using deadly force if necessary; that’s not true [under Iowa Code Chapter 704],” she said. “I think that people think that this is going to be the defense used by law-abiding citizens who are protecting themselves; in reality, it’s a can of worms. The person who’s dead because they got shot unreasonably doesn’t get a trial. They don’t get a chance to defend themselves … so that person who shot them is judge, jury, and executioner.”
Iowa is a right-to-carry state, and the portion of the bill that would allow weapons to be carried inside the Capitol has some legislators worried about personal and group safety in an environment in which tensions often run high.
“During the debate, one of the representatives said that the best way to fight a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” Bennett said.
“In the Capitol, we debate bills that can become highly emotional for some members of the public and some representatives. It’s really concerning to me that people sitting in the gallery may become particularly emotional. When you’re talking about a good guy with a gun, unfortunately, you’re talking about a situation in which somebody is already opening fire on other people and then has to be stopped.”
Proponents of the bill would extend this same argument to certain situations or environments, such as the Capitol.
“When you’re walking into a building like the Capitol here, there are many different opportunities for someone who has criminal intent to get into this building to cause harm if they so choose, so I don’t believe disarming citizens at the door under the guise of protectionism is appropriate nor right,” Windshitl said. “… They are paying for the seats that we sit in, they are paying for our salaries. They come down here and exercise their First Amendment rights all the time within reason, I believe they should be able to come down and exercise their Second Amendment rights within reason.”
That the legislation will be passed in the House and Senate does not come as a surprise to some who have followed this bill and others like it across Iowa and the nation, such as James Kennedy, president of the UI Second Amendment Law Group, a nonpartisan organization. He said people’s opinions are independent of organization.
“As far as I’m concerned I see this as a trend that a lot of other states have been following,” he said. “For the last few years, there has been a general push toward loosening firearm carrier rights and weapons law in general … and for the most part, it’s not necessarily shocking in any way [Iowa is] just the next state.”
Austin Collins, the vice president of the UI Second Amendment Law Group, believes the bill’s passage through both chambers to be a result of a Republican majority in House, Senate, and governorship, the first Iowa has seen since 1997.
“The Iowa House of Representatives have passed this kind of legislation repeatedly, either to be blocked by an uncooperative Senate or by a Democratic governor’s veto,” Collins said. “This is something they’ve been trying to do for a long time and … as much as legislation can be, almost guaranteed that to happen once they had a Republican Senate and a Republican governor.”
