by Dave Funk | Jan 2, 2024
HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM THE FREE STATE OF IOWA
Happy New Year from the Free State of Iowa, which celebrated its 177th birthday on December 28th! It’s New Year’s Day 2024 as I write this. Many of you know how I wound up an Iowan. However, for those of you who do not, here is how it all happened. Having been born and raised in Buffalo, New York, and as a newly minted private pilot, I enlisted in the US Air Force expecting to see the world. The Air Force sent me to Omaha… Now that you’re finished laughing, it turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to me.
You see, having grown up in even-then economically declining and freedom-crushing State of New York, finding the clear skies of Nebraska and Iowa at age eighteen was a Godsend. I then finished up my professional pilot flight training, graduated from the University of Nebraska (I know, my Huskers football team is not what it used to be). I ultimately received a Direct Commission as a Warrant Officer in the Iowa Army National Guard. I flew attack helicopters out of Waterloo for most of my Army career.
Why might I bring this up on New Year’s Day 2024 you might ask? Well, growing up in New York gives me a unique perspective on how rapidly those dangerous quacks on the Left destroy everything they touch. Be it States, corporations, institutions, or families. Point to anything that has gotten better by centralized government or totalitarian control in history. None of us can.
That’s why Free States like Iowa, Florida, and Texas continue to prosper, and Blue States like California, Minnesota, and New York are in economic collapse with exploding crime rates. We watch as the State of New York prosecutes our former President on “trumped up” civil financial fraud charges. It is glaringly apparent that if you get on the wrong side of the leftists in power, they will destroy you — by any means necessary. Who in their right mind would ever invest in New York State again?
2024 – Election Year
2024 is an election year. It’s obvious that one party is doing everything it can to disarm law-abiding citizens and ensure that it can exert one-party rule in perpetuity. Not just by controlling every institution of government, but also by ensuring it has a monopoly on power.
That’s why the two biggest issues this year are the economy and crime. Heck, even New Yorkers are turning to the Second Amendment, much to the dismay of the gun control dangerous quacks.
Rush Limbaugh used to say that the world is ruled by the aggressive use of force. The Left knows this, that’s why they want to disarm every one of us. Free People can fight back, slaves cannot.
Watch for legislative updates here from the Iowa State House over the next few weeks right here and on the IFC-PAC web pages.
I know that economic times are tough, but to ensure that we at IFC & IFC-PAC can keep fighting for you, please purchase your tickets to the IFC PAC Prime Rib Dinner on January 18th. Hopefully, I’ll see you there, after meeting each and every one of you at IFC’s annual 2A Lobby Day that morning.
Help us educate Iowans on the facts by joining or renewing your IFC membership here today. And please stay Ready at All Times.
Shoot Straight, Speak The Truth, and Never Surrender Our Liberties.
Dave Funk
President, IFC
by Dave Funk | Dec 26, 2023
Truth or fiction: How many stories do we accept as fact? As I write this week’s President’s Message on Christmas morning, I’m reminded of how many stories we all take as fact, when upon further study, turn out to be different from what was thought to be true.
Be it the story of the actual birth of Baby Jesus — what we know as no room at “The Inn” in Bethlehem, or the “three” wise men. A careful reading of the Gospel According to Luke clearly shows differences from what we see in the common Nativity Scene, versus First Century Judaism in real life.
Kind of like the dangerous quacks on the left trying to tell us how much safer the world would be if the police and military were the only ones who had guns.
It doesn’t take much of a realist to understand that the Framers understood that the government should never have a monopoly on power. That commitment to freedom is famously illustrated by General George Washington crossing the Delaware River in the middle of the night on Christmas to attack British troops at Trenton.
CLOSER TO HOME
Speaking of truth, we learn that Iowa’s own State Representative Lindsay James (D), Dubuque County, has joined President Biden’s “Safer States Agenda” team to push for gun control at the State level. Apparently Rep. James did not read the 49th Amendment to the Iowa Constitution that passed overwhelmingly last year. But then those dangerous quacks live in their own bubble, unaffected by truth.
Help us educate Iowans on the facts by joining or renewing your IFC membership here today. And please stay Ready at All Times.
RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER!
Have you purchased your tickets to the IFC PAC Prime Rib Dinner on January 18th? Hopefully I’ll see you there, after meeting each and every one of you at IFC’s annual 2A Lobby Day beginning at 9a.m. that morning.
I hope each of you had a great holiday season, and wish you a happy new year.
Shoot Straight, Speak The Truth, and Never Surrender Our Liberties.
Dave Funk
President, IFC
by Dave Funk | Dec 19, 2023
YOUR FREEDOM AMENDMENT VOTE MADE A DIFFERENCE
Your Freedom Amendment vote made a difference. Here’s an example: Illinois versus Iowa. On December 14, 2023, a couple dozen activists gathered in Davenport for an anti-gun protest. They somehow get a bit of press coverage, even though everyday Iowans are mostly ignored by the mainstream press. You know the Iowans I’m talking about–the nearly 750,000 Iowa voters who voted for the Freedom Amendment. The 750,000 voters we need to remind our legislators about.
Fortunately for all of us, we have honest journalists in Iowa, and even in Illinois. WQAD-TV ran a story on December 14th. My hat is off to them for once again reaching out to IFC to give our view, and for correctly quoting me. From the story by Jonathan Fong:
“…Also on Dec. 14, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to not immediately block the Protect Illinois Communities Act, a law that bans the sale of some semiautomatic weapons.
“Doesn’t mean the federal circuit appellate courts are not gonna hear it and rule on it; they’re just saying we’re not going to take it up right now,” Iowa Firearms Coalition president Dave Funk explained.
Funk is confident the Supreme Court will overturn the law. “With the makeup of the current court, and it’s gonna stay this way for probably, at least another decade, maybe two decades, where you have a majority of pro-constitution or originalists on the court … we’ll see it overturned, we won’t see any change.”
It’s important to understand the federal appellate process, in the case of the Protect Illinois Communities Act (PICA). The PICA act is unconstitutional on its face. This is clear to anyone with any knowledge of the Second Amendment, its historical traditions, and the Bruen Decision. Jumping directly to the US Supreme Court, while similar cases from other states are working their way through the system, is not something SCOTUS likes. We all want SCOTUS to rule in favor of the plaintiffs, but we have to let the legal process work its way through.
GRASPING AT STRAWS
We all know those Dangerous Quacks are grasping for straws. Let’s keep them grasping here in Iowa. Help IFC fulfill its mission to you, and all Iowa gun owners, by purchasing your tickets to the IFC PAC Prime Rib Dinner on January 18th. Hopefully, I’ll see you there, after meeting each and every one of you at IFC’s annual 2A Lobby Day that morning.
Help us educate Iowans on the facts by joining or renewing your IFC membership here today. And please stay Ready at All Times.
Shoot Straight, Speak The Truth, and Never Surrender Our Liberties.
Dave Funk
President, IFC
by Dave Funk | Dec 12, 2023
SOME OLD ISSUES WILL NOT DIE
Some old issues will not die when dealing with those Dangerous Quacks on the anti-gun left. Let me point out just a few:
The first one is from Gaza, of all places. Just earlier this year the Iowa Legislature punted on the issue of big banks trying to deny access to credit card processing services for lawful firearms businesses in the United States. Yet The Messenger reports banks are happy to extend credit to Hamas-butchers like Ismail Haniyeh. Haniyeh “dropped his credit card and fled”. The expired Visa card was found in the Gaza tunnels by an Israeli soldier. Like other despots around the world, a review of Haniyeh’s account history showed he was living high on the hog, while those under Hamas’ rule, were impoverished.
GunBusters or Myth Busters?
Then over at the Seattle Times; they have discovered the horrifying fact that not all “bought back” or confiscated guns are melted down for scrap metal! Instead, unless the agencies pay extra, companies will strip them down and only dispose of the frame or receiver, selling off the remainder of the parts. What the Dangerous Quacks don’t catch on to is that even when the parts are sold, rebuilding the gun requires compliance with Federal, State, and local laws.
This story is part of a new angle of the campaign to demonize anyone in the firearm or ammunition business. This has been going on since I was a kid — and I’m sixty-five years old! Like I said, some old issues just will not die.
Congress & the Supreme Court: Separate for a Reason
With the passing of retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, I’d like to relay one of her greatest contributions to public discourse. Today we are finally starting to see her efforts coming to fruition. Regarding government overreach, in her dissenting opinion in the case of Gonzales v. Raich, she wrote this simple, powerful statement:
“If the Court always defers to Congress as it does today,” O’Connor wrote in her dissent, “little may be left to the notion of enumerated powers.”
Raich dealt with the Commerce Clause of the Constitution and the Federal Government’s interjection of its will regarding the private production of anything, even if it was not for sale. Much like the Bruen decision last year, incremental steps like her dissent in Raich laid the groundwork for future legislation to restore rights and guide subsequent court decisions.
My special thanks to Jacob Sallium over at Ammoland for reminding me of Justice O’Connor’s important dissent.
Supreme Court’s Historical Second Amendment Stance
The last thing I’d like to write about this week is the perception that the U.S. Supreme Court has only recently regarded the Second Amendment as important. Regardless of that perception, the historical record shows they have been very Pro-2A throughout their history. A rather long piece at the American Thinker titled “The Government’s Historic Failure to Limit Firearms“ by Michael Ange is very well written. Spend fifteen minutes reading it, to put things in perspective.
Freedom always needs defending! You can help by purchasing your tickets to the IFC-PAC Prime Rib Dinner on January 18th. Will you be attending? I hope to see you there, after meeting each and every one of you at IFC’s annual 2A Lobby Day that morning.
Help us educate Iowans on the facts by joining or renewing your IFC membership here today. And please stay Ready at All Times.
Shoot Straight, Speak The Truth, and Never Surrender Our Liberties.
Dave Funk
President, IFC
by Dave Funk | Dec 5, 2023
EVIL EXISTS: WHY DOES THE LEFT ALWAYS BLAME THE GUN?
Evil exists: why does the left always blame the gun? Think back to the Columbine School shooters, there is no question they were evil…or the Beslan School attackers, or the Hamas attackers in Israel on October 7th, or just a few days ago, the knife attacker in Paris.
In every one of these examples, along with the hundreds of other evil actors and deeds around the world, the anti-gun leftists all blame the gun instead of the evil or criminal person using it. Evil is evil whether the weapon used is a gun, a knife, a chainsaw, a vehicle, or something else.
Over the years, in debates with those anti-gun dangerous quacks, I’ve observed one consistent trait. They all share what economist Dr. Thomas Sowell famously observed:
“People convinced of their own superior wisdom and virtue have no time to spare for what other people want, whether in housing or health care or a whole range of other things.”
KNOW YOUR HISTORY
Amazingly, the anti-gun quacks also cannot seem to comprehend that others have any different views than theirs. They actually believe that if we all were just disarmed, the world would be a safer place. What I find terrifying is that those same people have ignored all of human history and man’s capacity for evil towards other men. But yet they want governments to have a monopoly on power?
During the tyrannical COVID lockdowns brought upon us by Dr. Fauci, our own government saw how easy it is to create fear and get people to submit. Now the CDC and leftist lawmakers want to treat “gun violence” as a virus. Guns are inanimate objects, they are not self-aware or capable of independent action, and they certainly can’t make copies of themselves, as a virus does.
Evil is the issue, and it can never be reasoned with, or regulated. It can only be destroyed by those willing to stand up to it. Help us educate Iowans on the facts by joining or renewing your IFC membership here today. And please stay Ready at All Times.
Have you purchased your tickets to the IFC PAC Prime Rib Dinner on January 18th? Hopefully, I’ll see you there, after meeting each and every one of you at IFC’s annual 2A Lobby Day that morning.
Shoot Straight, Speak The Truth, and Never Surrender Our Liberties.
Dave Funk
President, IFC
is famously illustrated by General 
Let’s keep them grasping here in Iowa. Help IFC fulfill its mission to you, and all Iowa gun owners, by purchasing your tickets to the 
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