THANK YOU BROWNELLS!

THANK YOU BROWNELLS!

THANK YOU BROWNELLS!

Thank you Brownells, indeed! Second Amendment supporters should be thankful that Brownells is such a champion of 2A issues. We had the opportunity to again experience this first-hand last Saturday, when a team from IFC attended GunCon at Brownells. This is the third year Brownells has hosted media influencers from around the country to hold live-streamed panel discussions on various 2A topics, showcase a variety of quality guns and gear available on site from many different vendors, and provide a forum for both national gun rights organizations and Iowa’s own Iowa Firearms Coalition, to meet with people.

[Photos and comments about GunCon were contributed by all IFC team members.]

The Panelists & Sessions

Typical of Brownells and The Gun Collective, the event was a huge success and very well attended.  Doors opened at 10 a.m.  Our team arrived at 8 a.m. to set up, and there were already lines of people waiting outside the entry doors. Audience members were able to ask questions of the panelists, and those tuned into the live stream could also submit questions to be answered. Check out this link, and scroll down to see a list of featured panelists and the vendors at GunCon. Our own IFC volunteer Lobbyist, Richard Rogers (pictured in the red shirt, above) participated in panel discussions. Richard has a vast knowledge of the history of 2A legislative and case law developments, both nationally and in Iowa, and we were proud to have him represent IFC.

 

IFC TRUSTED PARTNERS

In addition to Brownells, two other IFC Trusted Partners were at the event also.  Trusted Partners add value for our members by offering discounted prices on goods or services, when purchasing them with a discount code through IFC’s website. In fact, you can more than pay for your annual membership fee by purchasing discounted goods through our Trusted Partners — buying quality goods that you would have purchased anyway. Vice President and volunteer, Billy Wilson, made sure to thank our partners, on behalf of our members.

 

Old Friends

But it was not all serious discussion!  Stephen Willeford, representing Gun Owners of America (GOA), had some fun with their photo board and props. GOA was in the booth next to ours.  Other 2A rights organizations represented were FRAC and the Second Amendment Foundation. Stephen (pictured on the right in this photo) is best known as “The Barefoot Defender” in the Sutherland Springs church shooting in Texas a few years ago.  IFC invited Mr. Willeford to speak to our members at the 2A Lobby Day a couple of years ago, and again at the IFC-PAC Supper that evening. The events of that day had a profound effect on Mr. Willeford and his impactful story is raw still.

Speaking of 2A Lobby Day–our Lobby Day event in 2025 will be held on February 18th, from 1:00-4:00 p.m. at the Iowa Capitol, as always. The keynote speaker is Iowa native, Jeff Struecker, known from Black Hawk Down. You won’t want to miss this event.  We’ll let you know when tickets go on sale.

Takeaways

Talking with the IFC team after the event, the things that most impressed us were:

  • There were people from everywhere! We talked with folks from Denver, from Florida, from Nebraska, Missouri, and certainly from Illinois!  (Kansas State Rifle Association had their big annual meeting on the same day as GunCon this year, so we didn’t run into many from Kansas this year.) Eric Hansen, our Events Coordinator, said that the folks from Illinois all told him the same thing: they are looking at options for moving across the river. Illinois gun laws are driving them to greener pastures – like Iowa!
  • People were willing to drive six to ten hours to attend the event. It is important to them and the event offers something for everyone. The benefit of learning from the various panelists firsthand was a big draw for attendees.
    • There were all kinds of people at the event. People of all ages and backgrounds; people with varying degrees of firearms experience and different interests. Although still a predominantly male crowd, there were many women in attendance and they were not just companions along for the ride! The involvement of women with guns was a frequent topic mentioned by the panelists.
  • The folks who stopped by our booth — and there were MANY! — were very appreciative of the work done by IFC since its inception. The degree of interaction with them, the length of discussions, and the concerns they have about protecting gun rights, were impressive.

 

What Next?

All in all, it was a great day! Getting to interact with hundreds of people from all walks of life, with common concerns and interests, was rejuvenating! As you can see, we are growing our presence and outreach, and we could really use your talent. We are an All-Volunteer organization. Volunteer and discover all the fun you are missing! The folks at IFC are great to work with and very helpful.

Also, if you are not yet a member of IFC, or if your shooting friends are not members, what are you waiting for? One of the appalling statistics I heard from the 2A Rights panel was that over 126,000 Iowa gun owners are NOT registered to vote! And, looking at gun owners nationally, over 9 million gun owners are not registered to vote. That does not bode well in terms of protecting our interests.

Our Second Amendment rights are under serious attack. For heaven’s sake: JOIN IFC & VOTE!

Second Amendment Matters

 

IFC 2A Day 2025 with Jeff Struecker from Black Hawk Down

IFC 2A Day 2025 with Jeff Struecker from Black Hawk Down

Yes, we’ll celebrate 2A Day this year with Iowa native, Jeff Struecker, known from Black Hawk Down.  Jeff is our keynote speaker at the Capitol building and also our speaker at the IFC-PAC Supper that same night. 

Jeff Struecker was a decorated soldier. At age 18, he enlisted in the United States Army as an Infantryman and retired as a chaplain with over 22 years of active federal service. In 2017, he was inducted into the US Army Ranger Hall of Fame.

He served for ten years in the 75th Ranger Regiment in positions from Private to Platoon Sergeant. While serving in this unit, Jeff competed in and won the David L. Grange Best Ranger Competition in 1996. He taught ROTC at the University of Louisville and was recognized in 1998 as the US Army ROTC, Noncommissioned Officer of the Year. Jeff spent his final ten years in the US Army serving as a chaplain in Airborne and Ranger units.

Throughout his career, Jeff has attended numerous professional military schools and has received many awards and commendations. Some of his awards include the Ranger Tab, Combat Infantryman’s Badge, Pathfinder Badge, Master Parachutists Wings, Military Freefall Master Parachutist Wings, several foreign jump wings, and the Combat Action Badge. He has been awarded other commendations and decorations throughout his military career.

His combat experience includes participation in the invasion of Panama, Operation Desert Storm, Black Hawk Down in Somalia, and more than a dozen combat tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. Jeff has been awarded medals for valor in combat and has received many medals as recognition for his service in the US Army.

Jeff holds a Ph.D. from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, NC. He also has several other earned and honorary degrees. He is the lead pastor of 2 Cities Church in Columbus, Georgia.

He is an award-winning author with five books in print. He and his wife, Dawn, have five children and four grandchildren.

IFC will be running a shuttle van from parking lot 16 shown on the map —> throughout the day.  Noon to 4pm.  The van will pick up and drop off in parking lot 16 and the front (west) entrance of the Capitol building.  We’ll be using a passenger van with IFC logos on the doors.  Flag us down and we’ll give you a lift!

FULL SIZE MAP

FBI: DON’T BELIEVE YOUR LYING EYES

FBI: DON’T BELIEVE YOUR LYING EYES

FBI: DON’T BELIEVE YOUR LYING EYES

FBI: don’t believe your lying eyes! Well, it would figure that the once-revered Federal Bureau of Investigation as the ‘best of the best’ in America has now totally succumbed to the Obama-Biden politicization of Federal Law Enforcement and our DOJ. The FBI is cooking the books when it comes to crime data in the United States, and it was another federal agency that ratted them out!

The FBI issues its Uniform Crime reports, but it fails to highlight that major cities like New York, Los Angeles, and others, don’t even report their crime data to the FBI. Also, many other cities including Baltimore and Chicago underreport theirs. Meanwhile, in its annual National Crime Victimization Survey, the Bureau of Justice Statistics shows crime skyrocketing!

Noted economist and author Dr. John Lott just published an article about this very subject, it’s worth a full read. I’ll highlight just a few paragraphs here:

“I have pointed out before that since 2020, the FBI’s number of reported crimes and the NCVS’s number of total crimes have gone in opposite directions. For example, between 2021 and 2022, the FBI showed a 2.1% drop in violent crime, but the NCVS showed an increase of 29.3%. 

 

But there is a more fundamental problem. The FBI and NCVS’s estimates of reported crimes have also gone in opposite directions since 2020. From 2008 to 2019, the FBI and NCVS measures of reported violent crimes generally tended to move up and down together. But from 2020 to 2022, these two numbers were almost perfectly negatively related to each other. Each time one measure of reported violent crimes rose, the other measure fell.

 

For example, while the FBI’s number of reported violent crimes fell by 2% in 2021 and 2.1% in 2022, the NCVS’s measure showed increases of 13.6% and 29.3%, respectively.”

Dr. Lott sums it up here:

“The news media relies on reported crime numbers without considering unreported crime. However, the gap between the two measures of reported crimes provides strong doubts about the accuracy of the FBI’s reported crime data. Americans believe that crime is increasing as law enforcement is collapsing. They also say that they are reporting more crimes to the police, but that isn’t showing up in the FBI reports.”

How can we have good public policy without good data, while many cities and the FBI are clearly cooking the books? The answer is we cannot. It’s another reason why the Framers never wanted the government to have a monopoly on power and why they enshrined our God-given right to keep and bear arms into our Constitution. 

Please stay Ready at All Times, and help us defend all of Iowa’s rights by joining or renewing your IFC membership here today.

Shoot Straight, Speak The Truth, and Never Surrender Our Liberties.

Dave Funk
President
Iowa Firearms Coalition

The Problem with Progressive Anti-Liberty Mindset is Tyranny

The Problem with Progressive Anti-Liberty Mindset is Tyranny

Tyranny is the problem with the progressive anti-liberty mindset.  Whenever possible, they employ tyranny over us with glee and enthusiasm.  Why?  Because they tell themselves they’re saving us from ourselves.  It isn’t that the 2A or 1A are fundamental problems.  Rather, the average progressive, post-modern, neo-Marxist, or run-of-the-mill left winger can’t handle a world they don’t control.  It won’t matter to them that you and I, among 99% of the rest of us do well, sometimes even great, with the exercise of our civil liberties, but more that they can’t imagine doing anything of the sort themselves.  And because they can’t think through what it would be like to defend oneself with a firearm, they seek to remove any choice for you to do so.

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”

C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology (Making of Modern Theology)

Lewis does a pretty good job of outlining this fundamental problem in the quote above.  If you cut to the core of these silly progressive liberal arguments, you inevitably come to one irrefutable truth.  They can’t possibly grapple with the precept surrounding responsibility and consequence.  They wish to place upon us restrictions that make them feel better about themselves with simultaneous safety nets to make it work.

Why safety nets you ask?  Well, when the consequences are no longer bound to the choices we make, we simply don’t learn the lesson.  Without lessons learned, we are apt to make more bad choices.  With more bad choices, we see poor outcomes associated with everything you can chart, categorize, or easily reference.  To avoid the truth associated with such endeavors, safety nets are necessary to mask the logical conclusion that ethics matter and serve as the basis for our morals in action.

This isn’t to say progs don’t care about people.  Of course, they do.  But they don’t love them enough to allow them to grow in ways that can often result in a bruised knee or a scraped elbow.  My dad pushed me down the driveway, which had a considerable grade, without training wheels, and yelled, “Peddle son!”  Guess what?  I learned to ride a bike in 7 seconds.  How long might it have taken me if I’d had training wheels on?  I’m unsure, as it was the road not traveled.  But I’m guessing longer than 7 seconds.  Dad wasn’t wrestling his own mind about what was going to happen or not happen when he gave me a push.  He had sized me up, knew I was probably ready to rock, and gave me a shove.  Progs have a hard time with that metaphorically speaking, so they tend to avoid the possibility it won’t go well, by placing everyone on perpetual training wheels for their own good.

Unfortunately, their version of training wheels is perpetual intolerance of us while demanding 100% tolerance of them.  Thus, tyranny and Hell on Earth.  Pay close attention to what they say when they’re talking.  They rarely skip an opportunity to talk down to you.  Go read the Lewis quote above again, and let it sink in.

In Libertatem,

 

Michael Ware – IFC Board