For Those of You Butt Hurt Over No Machine Guns in Iowa, I’m going to clue you into what too few will ever tell you.  First, you may not understand what the problems are.  Second, you may not understand the process of an idea eventually becoming a law.  Third, you’re directing your ire in the wrong direction.  But IFC can help clear up the first two misunderstandings, and together, we can tackle the 3rd.

For context, there are three things we hear often from Iowans.  1, when are we going to get machine guns?  2, why can’t the good guys carry in schools?  3, why can’t we reverse the carry ban in parking lots?  …ALL are good questions and completely capable of being corrected.  Here are a few examples of the comments we get sent routinely:

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First, you may not understand what the problems are.

Here is the problem.  Only a fraction of the legislature has the guts to vote for and support the repeal of 724.1 (the “offensive weapons” code in Iowa that prohibits machine gun ownership).  And even if you didn’t repeal 724.1, which is what should be done since all these items are already federally regulated and legally possessed in varying degrees in nearly 40 other states, Iowa politicians don’t have the guts to vote to support machine gun ownership.  Hey, I’m just telling you the truth.  Sure, there are a handful of folks in both chambers who would support this change, but a ton are scared of the negativity they’d hear, which is nearly always born of lies or misunderstanding.  I don’t know where the Governor is on such things.  She’s never said it, and maybe she should be explicitly asked why most of the United States doesn’t hold a position contrary to the Constitution or the Bruen decision, but Iowa does.

Second, you may not understand the process of an idea eventually becoming a law.

“Tell us who voted against it so we can vote them out!”

We can’t point to legislators and provide a list of betrayals or folks who voted against this kind of bill because it never made it out of drafting this year!  That’s right.  I wrote a blog about our bill draft, but with no small irony, it was never assigned a bill number. No bill number, no committee assignment.  Dead…

And, even if it had assigned a file number or a study bill number, a committee chair would have to assign a subcommittee of people to discuss it, if it passed the subcommittee, it would then have to be scheduled for the full committee. If successful there, it would need to be scheduled for floor debate and would be necessary to pass through both the House and Senate, endure changes and amendments, or remain identical on both sides of the Capitol Rotunda.  Sounds simple, right?  WRONG…  Bills don’t fly through this process automatically with naturally occurring action.  Nope.  There are gatekeepers in each position.  The committee chairs WILL NOT assign bills for a subcommittee that they think may make their fellow legislators look unfavorable.  Same with complete committee work.  So, if they don’t think they have the votes OR folks within their caucus push back, they simply don’t move the bills.  They die for lack of action.  It’s the same with floor debate.  The leadership decides what bills will be placed on the calendar, when, etc., all done by the procedure, of course.  But, procedure or not, they don’t often place anything on the calendar they can’t pass.  In fact, I’ve watched bills be pulled from floor debate as they were being debated because things weren’t looking favorably.

“I’m just a bill, yes I’m only a bill…”  We learned as kids that bills get written, then debated, win or lose on merit, then get volleyed around, and eventually, possibly signed by the executive, and if so, become laws.  That’s a pollyannish view at best.  There are gatekeepers all along the way, and they’re sometimes looking out for their interests, or possibly the interests of people like them, or sometimes told by more powerful people to simply not touch a bill.  All of these are happening right now, as we speak, in the Iowa Legislature.

Bills only move forward when the gatekeepers allow them OR so many legislators push for them that they can’t be stopped. Period.

Third, you’re directing your ire in the wrong direction.

We’ve been working on this continually for nearly a decade.  We had machine gun legalization in the famous Omnibus Bill back in 2017, and it was stripped out when a newspaper article made it a focus for a day.  Some years, we see a bill number; some years, that doesn’t even happen.  But leadership and committee chairs stop this from coming to fruition.  However, they usually only do this in the case of legislators who don’t truly understand Iowa’s motto:  “Our Liberties we Prize and our Rights we will Maintain” and that’s the core problem.

Individual legislators need tuned up.  They need to commit to you, Joe Public, that they’re going to advance and vote for your issues*.  And that won’t happen without your complete and continual engagement.  (*And by the way, being told they’ll vote for it IF it comes before them is a cop-out.  You’re looking for a genuine commitment to bring our legislation to fruition by working behind the scenes to make it happen.)  We can and will guide you through that process.  IFC then liaises with those same legislators and leadership to craft meaningful legislation, manage concerns, and essentially guide the process while handling timely and untimely hurdles that require jumping.  There are tools along the way we’ll be using, and your sharing them around to build a strong following for each individual bill is the only way this works.

For some reason, there is a disconnect between what we see with the Federal Government, Trump, Vance, DOGE, and the likes doing, and Iowa legislators.  I can’t explain it, but they don’t seem to grasp what people expect.  Court cases are coming down all over the nation, and Iowa isn’t paying any attention.  They’re too often aligning with bureaucracies, or they’re scared of loud activist media outlets.  I hope we can help clear up whatever misconceptions there are.  I truly do.  This process gets easier and happens faster when you’re completely engaged.  When you’re not, it rarely happens.

What can you do?

My two asks???  First, engage and stay all over your elected officials like stink on a pig.  Second, if ANY of them wish to sponsor or cosponsor vital 2A legislation like the legalization of machine guns and bringing us in line with the federal government and dozens of other states along with the momentum of multiple court cases, including the Bruen decision, send them our way.  We want to talk to them.

In Libertatem,

Michael Ware
IFC Board

PS – If you’re not clear on the court battles, search.  There are too many to list out there…  This video might give you some context: