Just a reminder Iowa’s highest polling candidate for Attorney General, Brenna Bird, and her son, both support Iowa’s Freedom Amendment. Turn your ballot over and VOTE YES for Iowa’s Right to Keep and Bear Arms Amendment! We’re thankful for her support. THANK YOU!
To learn more about Brenna Bird, go HERE. Support the people who support you!
Do you know that Iowa is one of only six states that do not recognize our precious Second Amendment rights in their constitutions? It may seem hard to believe, but Iowa, which adopted “shall issue” Permits to Carry Weapons in 2010 and became a “constitutional carry” state in 2021, shares that dubious distinction with California, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Minnesota.
The Iowa Firearms Coalition, Iowa’s only effective gun-rights organization, has been hard at work for years to get this fixed! Amending Iowa’s Constitution is no easy task. The course is long and there are many hurdles and pitfalls along the way. But the good news is that what the IFC calls the “Freedom Amendment” has now passed two consecutive Iowa General Assemblies and the issue will be on the ballot for Iowa voters to decide on November 8, 2022.
The proposed Freedom Amendment reads:
“The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. The sovereign state of Iowa affirms and recognizes this right to be a fundamental individual right. Any and all restrictions of this right shall be subject to strict scrutiny.”
Show Off Your MSR Hunting Photos to be Entered for Hunting Trip
WASHINGTON, D.C. — NSSF®, The Firearm Industry Trade Association, is helping hunters to reject gun control’s accusations that Modern Sporting Rifles (MSRs) aren’t meant for hunting. Nothing could be further from the truth. Today’s hunters have plenty of options when it comes to hunting, and MSRs fit right in.
Now, NSSF has teamed up with The Confluence Group for hunters to proudly show off their 2022 hunting season photos with AR-platform rifles and be entered for a chance to win a Mississippi Deer or Louisiana Hog Hunt.
Entering is easy as sharing.
Take a photo while hunting using an MSR.
Post the photo to Instagram including #LetsGoHunting in the caption.
Submissions are reviewed to ensure they meet requirements.
@letsgohuntingusa may reach out via Instagram to request permission to share the photo on its pages.
MSRs & Hunting
Hunters have been using the latest advancements in technology and tactics for centuries. Today’s hunters have a wide array of tools to choose from when it comes to firearms, concealment, lures (decoys, calls, scents, etc.) and scouting. MSRs, today’s very popular semiautomatic rifle designs, are used by more and more hunters and offer a number of benefits that can suit most hunters. The rifles’ accuracy, reliability, ruggedness and versatility serve hunters well. They are true all-weather firearms and their modularity often allows them to be configured for various applications and body types.
For hunting, these commonly-owned rifles are used for many different types of hunting, from varmint to big game. Today’s MSRs are chambered in nearly all calibers, including those popular with large game like the .243 Winchester, the 6.5 Creedmoor, the venerable .30-06 Springfield and .338 Winchester Short Magnum. The NSSF encourages hunters to share memorable moments from the field when using MSRs through its #LetsGoHunting with MSRs Photo Challenge. There are many photo styles that can be submitted including selfies, trophy photos, group photos and firearms in the field.
MSRs are semiautomatic rifle designs, including the AR-15, AR-10, carbines and similar variants. We challenge you to share a snapshot or video from the field while using your MSR for a chance to win a Mississippi deer or Louisiana hog hunt.
Win A 2023 Mississippi Deer or Louisiana Hog Hunt
Fall 2023 – Prairie Wildlife Whitetail Deer Hunt
Two-person two-night stay at Prairie Wildlife.
Lodging and meals included.
Hunters will be responsible for state hunting license and travel expenses.
Hunt value is $9,000.00
Or
Fall 2023 – Honey Brake Hog Hunt
Two person – 2 night stay at famed Honey Brake Lodge for hog hunting.
Meals and lodging included.
Hunts will utilize night vision gear.
Hunters will be responsible for state hunting license and travel expenses.
Hunt value is $7,500.00
All valid entries must include a photo with a MSR in use, which is, by definition, a semiautomatic rifle, including the AR-15, AR-10, carbine and similar variants. Please read the official Photo Challenge Rules for more information.
NSSF thanks The Confluence Group for donating the prize hunts to help encourage hunters to participate in the MSR Hunting Photo Challenge. Learn more here.
About NSSF
NSSF is the trade association for the firearm industry. Its mission is to promote, protect and preserve hunting and the shooting sports. Formed in 1961, NSSF has a membership of thousands of manufacturers, distributors, firearms retailers, shooting ranges, sportsmen’s organizations and publishers nationwide. For more information, visit nssf.org.
– FREE Use of Range!
– FREE Targets!
– FREE use of firearms (4-5 available) Or, bring your own
– 9mm Ammo $22 per box*
– 22 Ammo $6 per box*
– Raffle Prizes
– Snacks
– You may bring your own Ammo.
CASH-ONLY for ammo purchases!
THANK YOU for loving children and staff enough to protect them! (CHEROKEE, Iowa) — The Iowa Firearms Coalition (IFC) welcomes steps taken by the Cherokee School Board to arm members of their on-campus staff in an effort to improve the school district’s security measures.
The school board approved the move, unanimously, during their meeting on Monday. Under the plan, staff members who wish to take part in the program must agree to undergo training and will need to contact the District’s Superintendent, Kim Lingenfelter.
Lingenfelter tells KTIV-TV discussions began to implement a new school safety plan after several staff members approached her office expressing interest in carrying self-defense tools at school.
“We were approached by staff that wanted to carry, that carry a gun competently wherever they go except for school. That’s how our conversation began, and they ask that we bring it to the board, then conversation began with law enforcement officials, chief of police, our school resource officer,” said Lingenfelter.
The move follows a similar unanimous decision made by the Spirit Lake School Board back in August and efforts by IFC to work with school districts and other local elected officials to improve safety in Iowa schools.
“Leaving our children defenseless from a would-be attacker is an immoral school safety strategy,” said IFC President Dave Funk. “We applaud the Cherokee School Board for putting the safety of their children ahead of political pressures from out of state groups who would rather leave our children vulnerable than allow teachers to exercise their constitutional rights.”
Iowa Code 724.4B, which allows school districts to regulate armed personnel on school grounds, paved the way for Cherokee’s decision.
On November 8th, Iowa voters will flip their ballots to vote “yes” on the Freedom Amendment, which would add Second Amendment protections to Iowa’s State Constitution, helping to protect local school boards’ authority to provide security measures for the children under their care.
The Iowa Firearms Coalition, an affiliate of the NRA and NSSF, is a 501(c4) nonprofit and is Iowa’s only effective pro-Second Amendment rights organization.
1, a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion 2, a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings
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Strict Scrutiny requires that the government show a compelling interest or a compelling need for restriction and that the law has to be very narrowly tailored.
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NYSRPA v Bruen – Laws may not restrict the 2A, and must be consistent with the historical tradition of the 2A.
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If you hadn’t noticed, and most of you may have missed it, there are a few obscure fringe groups out there clucking and pecking around in the gravel. They’re really not interested in the truth of the matter, but enjoy claiming they represent a large contingent of folk. They don’t. And they know they don’t.
An interesting thing comes to mind when I hear them. A long-time colleague and personal friend, Jan Mickelson, used to always tell me, “Listen when they speak. They’ll contradict themselves if they speak long enough.” He’s right. He was right then, and he’s right now. The core problem with these folks is they’re entirely parasitic on their own history. IE, they require you and me to be pillars of strength, in both ideology and practice. With no small irony, they gleefully swing the wrecking balls of hypocrisy to topple those very pillars.
Here you have a handful of people that don’t understand the recent SCOTUS Bruen decision but DO grasp strict scrutiny. The SCOTUS decision in Bruen dictates a higher standard than even strict scrutiny in the case of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. I know they do, or at least one of them does. Why? Because they’ve argued that “strict scrutiny” is necessary. They’ve done so recently. And they’ve done so right here in Iowa.
Would you be surprised to learn the very same people villanizing “strict scrutiny” in our Freedom Amendment you’ll see on the Nov 8th ballot argued for it just a couple of years ago? Don’t be shocked they’d say one thing when it suited them and another when it didn’t… If you’d like a deeper understanding of this subject and the 180 they’ve pulled in order to deny you your basic human rights, read through Richard’s analysis below. HERE is a download if you’d like to print or share it.
On Objections to the Strict Scrutiny Provision of The Freedom Amendment – Hypocrisy Writ Large
Freedom is on the ballot in Iowa! On November 8, Iowa voters will have the chance to make history by correcting an unfortunate oversight. Iowa is one of only six states that do not have protections of the right to keep and bear arms in their state constitutions. But almost twelve years after the first version was introduced in the Iowa House, and after approval by three separately elected General Assemblies, Ballot Measure 1 proposes to amend Iowa’s Constitution to provide strong protections of that fundamental right. Iowa Firearms Coalition has dubbed this the Freedom Amendment.
Of course, the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was intended to protect those rights from encroachment by the federal government – and in 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that it also restricts the states. Unfortunately, for well over a century, those who wish to seriously limit the free exercise of those rights have tried to either ignore or reinterpret the plain language of the Second Amendment. They have been pretty successful, as evidenced by the vast number of highly restrictive “gun control” laws on the books in many areas of the country.
Iowa legislators recognized this fact, so when they drafted the amendment to place protections of the right to keep and bear into Iowa’s Constitution, they added a provision that would be difficult for future legislators, executives, and judges to ignore. They included a requirement that any restrictions of this fundamental, individual right, must be subject to “strict scrutiny”, the highest level of three in a long-established framework for judicial review.
For almost twelve years, opponents of this amendment have sought to strike the strict scrutiny provision, obviously fearing that it will foil their dreams of bringing New York/California style gun control laws to Iowa. And that is no idle claim, as many of those fighting against the amendment are organized and funded by the notoriously anti-gun, anti-liberty New York billionaire, Michael Bloomberg. These critics seldom admit their antipathy to Americans’ Second Amendment rights. Instead, they typically profess that they “believe in the Second Amendment, but…” They argue that if only language of the amendment was changed to the exact text of the Second Amendment, they might be willing to support its adoption. Of course, they are laying a trap, as we have already noted their success in getting around that language in legislatures and – until recently – the courts.
In truth, the “strict scrutiny” standard of judicial review should not be controversial. It is the appropriate standard to be used in considering regulations that affect a fundamental right. So said the Iowa Supreme Court as recently as 2018 in its Planned Parenthood of the Heartland decision. How can the critics of including the strict scrutiny standard in this amendment be taken seriously when so many of them supported its use by the Court in that case? Their attacks on the amendment reek of hypocrisy. We wonder, which other of their fundamental rights would they wish to have protected by a lower standard?
The real problem seems to be that many of those working to defeat the amendment simply refuse to accept the fact that the right to keep and bear arms is a fundamental right. The Iowa Supreme Court, in that same Planned Parenthood case, stated this about fundamental rights: “Generally, only those “rights and liberties which are ‘deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition’ and ‘implicit in the concept of ordered liberty’ qualify as fundamental.” Given that description and their placement as the second item in the Bill of Rights, how could Second Amendment rights be considered anything other than fundamental? In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court settled that question with finality in its landmark Heller decision, which included this paragraph: “By the time of the founding, the right to have arms had become fundamental for English subjects. … Blackstone, whose works, we have said, “constituted the preeminent authority on English law for the founding generation,” … cited the arms provision of the Bill of Rights as one of the fundamental rights of Englishmen.”
In any event, the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent Bruen decision has directed lower courts to use an even more rigid test in Second Amendment cases. As long as that decision stands, the matter of strict scrutiny for cases brought in Iowa should be essentially moot. It will, however, provide a backup of protection to that of the Second Amendment.
Neither the Bruen directives, nor the imposition of a strict scrutiny standard, should be reasonably expected to call into question such existing laws as prohibiting violent felons and those adjudicated mentally defective from possessing firearms. There is an ancient tradition of denying such persons the full and free expression of their rights. That will not change – and has not in the three states that have imposed strict scrutiny for a decade or so.
Both Bruen and “strict scrutiny” will make it difficult or impossible for honest legislators and executives to erect the kind of strict limitations on the possession and use of weapons envisioned in the fever dreams of so-called “progressives”. And thankfully so…
IFC is confident that Iowans will FLIP their ballots and vote YES for FREEDOM on Nov. 8!
Richard S. Rogers
Board Member, Iowa Firearms Coalition
10/16/2022
I don’t know truly know if they realize they’re wolves in sheep’s clothing. It appears as such to me. But, nobody can deny that when you argue for strict scrutiny to the point you sue (Supreme Court of Iowa, No. 17-1579, 6/29/2018) over it, you agree more than tacitly, that a high level of judicial review is absolutely necessary when considering whether a curtailment of one’s basic human rights is appropriate.
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