Sean A. Brady spends time unpacking the big court case wrapping up next door in Illinois – Barnett v. Raoul – an “assault weapons ban” and much worse… Listen in to understand the case and the impact. We’ve had a case of our own – Monroe County v. IFC – that was a wild ride as many of you should remember. Also, as a born and raised California boy, he’s got a special understanding of Kamala Harris. Listen in and enjoy!
The 2024 IFC-PAC State Legislative Endorsements are the focus for this week’s blog. With the election in just over 30 days, and early voting in Iowa starting October 16th, we will skip the news this week. I’m sorry that as a bi-partisan organization, unlike in years past, we do not have a single Democrat Party member or candidate that has earned our support.
*To also see NRA Ratings, click on this link to the IFC-PAC website.
| NAME | CHAMBER | DISTRICT | INCUMBENT | PARTY | IFC-PAC ENDORSEMENT |
| Tim Kraayenbrink | Senate | 4 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Jason Schultz | Senate | 6 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Mark Costello | Senate | 8 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Dan Dawson | Senate | 10 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Amy Sinclair | Senate | 12 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Mark Hanson | Senate | 14 | No | R | Yes |
| Mike Pike | Senate | 20 | No | R | Yes |
| Brad Zaun | Senate | 22 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Jesse Green | Senate | 24 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Kara Warme | Senate | 26 | No | R | Yes |
| Dennis Guth | Senate | 28 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Doug Campbell | Senate | 30 | No | R | Yes |
| Mike Klimesh | Senate | 32 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Dan Zumbach | Senate | 34 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Dave Sires | Senate | 38 | No | R | Yes |
| Charlie McClintock | Senate | 42 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Adrian Dickey | Senate | 44 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Dawn Driscoll | Senate | 46 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Mark Lofgren | Senate | 48 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Jeff Reichman | Senate | 50 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Robert Henderson | House | 2 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Thomas Jeneary | House | 3 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Skyler Wheeler | House | 4 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Zachary Dieken | House | 5 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Megan Jones | House | 6 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Ann Meyer | House | 8 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Henry Stone | House | 9 | Yes | R | Yes |
| John Wills | House | 10 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Craig Williams | House | 11 | No | R | Yes |
| Steven Holt | House | 12 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Jacob Bossman | House | 14 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Matt Windschitl | House | 15 | Yes | R | Yes |
| David Sieck | House | 16 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Devon Wood | House | 17 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Thomas Moore | House | 18 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Brent Siegrist | House | 19 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Brooke Boden | House | 21 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Samantha Fett | House | 22 | No | R | Yes |
| Ray Sorensen | House | 23 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Sam Wengryn | House | 24 | No | R | Yes |
| Hans Wilz | House | 25 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Austin Harris | House | 26 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Oliver Bardwell | House | 27 | No | R | Yes |
| David Young | House | 28 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Barb McCulla | House | 37 | Yes | R | Yes |
| John Dunwell | House | 38 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Bill Gustoff | House | 40 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Ryan Weldon | House | 41 | No | R | Yes |
| Eddie Andrews | House | 43 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Dan Gehlback | House | 46 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Carter Nordman | House | 47 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Brett Barker | House | 51 | No | R | Yes |
| Dean Fisher | House | 53 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Joshua Meggers | House | 54 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Shannon Latham | House | 55 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Mark Thompson | House | 56 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Pat Grassley | House | 57 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Charley Thomson | House | 58 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Jane Bloomingdale | House | 60 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Michael Bergan | House | 63 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Jason Gearhart | House | 64 | No | R | Yes |
| Shannon Lundgren | House | 65 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Steven Bradley | House | 66 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Craig Johnson | House | 67 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Chad Ingels | House | 68 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Tom Determann | House | 69 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Jennifer Smith | House | 72 | No | R | Yes |
| Derek Wulf | House | 76 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Bobby Kaufmann | House | 82 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Cindy Golding | House | 83 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Thomas Gerhold | House | 84 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Jeff Shipley | House | 87 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Helena Hayes | House | 88 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Heather Hora | House | 92 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Taylor Collins | House | 95 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Mark Cisneros | House | 96 | Yes | R | Yes |
| Martin Graber | House | 100 | Yes | R | Yes |
Look into your county and city officials’ records and stances on 2A issues and vote accordingly. They are the party’s farm teams. We encourage you to bank your vote early this year so that the candidates can concentrate their efforts on those who have not yet voted.
Please stay Ready at All Times, and help us defend all of Iowa’s rights by donating to IFC-PAC today. Those small recurring monthly donations of $10, $25, or $100 make a huge difference in our ability to get the message of freedom out there.
Shoot Straight, Speak The Truth, and Never Surrender Our Liberties.
Dave Funk
Member, Board of Directors
Iowa Firearms Coalition
Kamala Harris lies during the debate – and it reached new lows. Like many Americans, I watched the Presidential Debate last week. I’m not going to get into the whole event here. But, I do want to touch on two major lies that should disqualify anyone for life in public office, let alone the Office of the President of the United States.
This claim is a clear case of gaslighting. I have previously covered how the FBI has under-reported crime, during the last 3.5 years of the Biden Administration. Dr. John Lott published a piece last week debunking that lie. From Dr. Lott:
“It’s no accident that violent crime is near a record 50-year low,” President Biden claimed.
In fact, the opposite is true: between 2016 and 2020, violent crime fell by 17% under Trump and soared by 43% under Biden between 2020 and 2022. Even if you take the starting period for Biden as 2019 because the numbers may have been artificially depressed during COVID, violent crime rose by 12%. Using 2019 as the end-point for Trump would imply a 6.6% increase over 2016, about half the increase under Biden. The problem is people don’t understand the difference between the number of crimes reported to police and the total number of crimes. However, as we have pointed out, there are problems with the FBI’s measure of reported crimes (see here, here, and here).
There are two measures of crime. The FBI’s NIBRS counts the number of crimes reported to police yearly. The Bureau of Justice Statistics uses its National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) to ask about 240,000 people each year whether they have been victims of crime, to measure reported and unreported crime. Since 2020, these two measures have been highly negatively correlated. The FBI has been finding fewer instances of crime, but people are simultaneously answering in greater numbers that they have been victims.”
As a Reserve Police Officer here in Iowa, I’m well familiar with the FBI’s NIBRS crime reporting system. I can also tell you that not all jurisdictions use it, or even uniformly report crime. Guess what? The greatest number of places that do not report, are Democrat-controlled cities and states like New York and Chicago among many others. When it’s this easy to point out the lies of the left, how can you ever trust the liberals?
Heels-Up Harris stated during the debates: 
“As of today, there is not one member of the United States military who is in active duty in a combat zone, in any war zone around the world for the first time this century.”
Well, someone should tell the DOD payroll department to start withholding income taxes from the thousands of US Military people in combat zones around the world.
But the best fact check of all came from this small group of troops watching the debate last Tuesday night and this video says it all:
https://x.com/bonchieredstate/status/1834921553982607522
We cannot survive as a nation with these loony toons dangerous quacks in power. Please get out and help pro-freedom candidates across Iowa and America today!
Please stay Ready at All Times, and help us defend all of Iowa’s rights by donating to IFC-PAC today. Those small recurring monthly donations of $10, $25, or $100 make a huge difference in our ability to get the message of freedom out there.
Shoot Straight, Speak The Truth, and Never Surrender Our Liberties.
Dave Funk
Member, Board of Directors
Yes, you do need standard capacity magazines and not artificially low limits (like those shown above). You cannot count on only needing five or ten rounds. If you watched the news last week, two stories should provide all of the proof you need to slap back the anti-self-defense dangerous quacks.
First out of Aurora, Colorado is a video of armed Venezuelan gang members taking over multiple apartment complexes. This is exactly why Americans need modern sporting rifles:
https://www.foxnews.com/video/6361171704112
And, there is this incredible video out of Staten Island, for years considered the safest Borough in New York City. The video illustrates why you need a pistol with at least 15 rounds in its magazine.
I’ll cite two experts for you, with advice on these attacks. The first is Massad Ayoob who I have studied under multiple times. Under the doctrine of disparate force as explained by Mass here, when you’re outnumbered or facing younger, stronger, and violent felons, lethal force is a legal option.
John Farnam over at AmmoLand.com cites these three lessons:
1) The “illusion of safety”
THE ILLUSION OF SAFETY
This vicious, unprovoked attack took place in the middle of a sunny day, in a “gun-free” school zone, and within a quiet residential area.
Reputation and symbolism (e.g., “safety zones”)
protect no one!
2) “When you leave them alone, they’ll leave you alone” represents a self-deceptive fantasy!These vicious, murderous [possibly illegal-alien] gangs know no limits, do not fear the “authorities,” have no compunction about randomly maiming/murdering anyone they choose, and respect no boundaries (particularly symbolic ones).
Too many honest, decent, productive citizens believe their personal respectability should, and does, magically protect them from harm.
Nonsense, as we see!
3) “Retreat, and they’ll let you go.”
More nonsense!
This victim did his best to disengage and run away. The gang overtook him, chased him down, and physically attacked him, in unison.
Unless you want to be totally defenseless like many in the blue states currently are, we need to boot out the Obama/Biden/Harris regime. We, as 2A advocates, need to fight like hell this election season to ensure “Heels-Up” Harris and valor-stealing Walz do not get elected to the White House come November.
Please stay Ready at All Times, and help us defend all of Iowa’s rights by donating to IFC-PAC today. Those small recurring monthly donations of $10, $25, or $100 make a huge difference in our ability to get the message of freedom out there.
Shoot Straight, Speak The Truth, and Never Surrender Our Liberties.
Dave Funk
Member, Board of Directors
Iowa Firearms Coalition
Are knives “Arms” under the Second Amendment? The Massachusetts Supreme Court just ruled that they are which is no surprise since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Heller (2008) that the Second Amendment applies to all bearable arms. In the case of Commonwealth v. David E. Canjura the court held that the state’s law prohibiting carrying of “switchblade” knives is an unconstitutional violation of the right to keep and bear arms, which is protected by the Second Amendment.
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts had argued that “knives categorically are not protected by the Second Amendment because the definition of arms is limited to firearms.” The court refuted that nonsense, stating that “… the Second Amendment extends to all bearable arms and is not limited to firearms”, referring back to Heller.
Interestingly, the Massachusetts Court pointed out that the law (and similar laws elsewhere) was passed in response to “sensationalized portrayals (in plays, films, etc.) of switchblades as weapons solely intended for criminality.” The court noted that the government did not provide evidence that “switchblades are…more likely to be used for criminal purposes”. But even had it done so, the Bruen decision (2022) by SCOTUS “expressly” prohibits weighing the right to keep and bear arms against any perceived public benefit of a law infringing upon that right. This is an exactly correct application of the Heller/Bruen methodology for deciding Second Amendment cases. I believe the outcome of this case strongly foreshadows forthcoming rulings on similar bans or restrictions on so-called “assault weapons”.
In contrast to the Massachusetts decision, a federal district court judge ruled last week that California’s ban on possession of switchblade knives is constitutional. In that case, the judge declared that those knives are not protected under the Second Amendment as they are “dangerous and unusual”. The ruling is quite obviously flawed in several respects. An article in the San Diego Tribune, makes clear that the fight is not over:
Doug Ritter, the CEO and founder of Knife Rights, an Arizona-based organization that’s the lead plaintiff in the case, called Simmons’ ruling “ludicrous and irrational” and promised to appeal the decision to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
RKBA is a natural and fundamental right that is protected from government infringement by the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Sixteen years after the full-throated recognition of those facts by the Supreme Court in Heller, the state of American jurisprudence is finally coming around to acceptance of that reality.
#2A4IA
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