Richard Rogers, Chief Lobbyist and IFC Board Member, prepared this and would like to share it with the community for their consideration. Thank you, Richard, for taking the time to prepare it.
A Guide for Young Adults and Parents to Iowa’s New Handgun Laws for 18- to 20-Year-Olds
On July 1, 2025, Iowa’s House File 924 will lower the minimum age for acquiring and carrying a handgun and obtaining a Nonprofessional Permit to Carry Weapons from 21 to 18. This change will finally allow Iowa’s young adults to fully exercise their Second Amendment rights, but those rights also bring responsibilities that must be recognized and understood. If you are an 18- to 20-year-old, or the parent of one, who is considering owning a handgun or carrying one, here’s some of what you need to know about state and federal weapons laws, firearm safety training, and maintaining shooting skills.
Legal Constraints on Acquiring a Handgun
While HF924 allows Iowans as young as 18 to acquire a handgun under state law, federal law still prohibits federal firearms licensees (FFls, i.e., gun dealers) from transferring handguns to anyone under 21. This means a young adult cannot purchase a handgun directly from a licensed dealer until they turn 21. However, they can legally acquire a handgun through private sales, inheritance, or gifts or a loan, such as from a family member or friend (provided the seller is not an FFL). At 18, they can also apply for a Nonprofessional Permit to Carry Weapons (PCW). A PCW facilitates private sales of firearms, by providing evidence of having passed an FBI criminal background check.
An applicant for a carry permit must pass a background check and present evidence of having completed a state-approved firearms safety training course. Be aware that certain disqualifiers, such as felony convictions, misdemeanor domestic violence convictions, possession of controlled substances, or recent serious misdemeanors, will prohibit one from legally possessing or carrying a firearm. Young adults and concerned parents should discuss these legal boundaries to ensure compliance and avoid legal consequences.
Firearm Safety Training: A Critical Step
Firearm safety training is non-negotiable. Iowa law requires applicants for a Nonprofessional Permit to Carry Weapons to demonstrate knowledge of firearm safety through an approved course. Courses offered by organizations like the National Rifle Association (NRA), local law enforcement, community colleges, or certified instructors, cover safe handling, storage, and use of firearms. The NRA’s handgun safety courses, for example, emphasize the fundamentals of marksmanship, safe storage, and situational awareness, which are essential for responsible gun ownership.
Parents should encourage their young adult to seek training beyond the minimum requirements. The United States Concealed Carry Association (USCCA) is one source of comprehensive courses that include defensive shooting techniques and legal education. These programs help young adults understand not only how to handle a firearm but also when its use is legally justified. Training fosters confidence and responsibility, reducing the risk of accidents or misuse.
Understanding Iowa’s Weapons and Use-of-Force Laws
Iowa’s weapons laws are detailed in Chapter 724 of the Iowa Code and generally outline where and how firearms may be carried. Iowa law has very few places where possession or carrying of a firearm is prohibited, the principal one being on the property of any public or private school (pre-K to grade 12). Violation is a felony! Other places have prohibitions in Iowa’s Administrative Code, such as in a casino, on the grounds of a correctional facility, and at the Iowa State Fair (during the Fair). In the State Capitol and on the grounds of the Capitol Complex, visitors may be armed only with a concealed handgun. It is a violation of federal law to possess a firearm on nearly all federal property, including Post Offices and other federal buildings, and Army Corps of Engineers’ lakes, dams, locks and reservations.
Iowa is a permitless carry state, meaning any adult who can legally possess a firearm can carry a weapon openly or concealed without a permit, except that 18- to 20-year-olds may not carry a pistol or revolver until July 1, 2025. However, anyone who carries or transports a firearm of any sort, should obtain a Permit to Carry Weapons. That is because the federal Gun Free School Zones Act (GFSZA) makes it a felony to possess a firearm while on public property within 1,000’ of any school unless the gun is unloaded and in a locked container or vehicle rack. A Permit to Carry issued by the state in which the school is located provides a complete exception to the law. A PCW is thus inexpensive protection from the constant risk of committing a federal felony.
Every adult should have a general understanding of the laws governing use-of-force, but that is vitally important for anyone who keeps or carries a deadly weapon. Iowa’s use-of-force laws are contained in Iowa Code Chapter 704. Iowa’s law incorporates so-called “castle doctrine” and “stand your ground” provisions, meaning there’s no duty to retreat from a threat if a person is lawfully present and reasonably believes force is necessary to prevent imminent harm. However, the use of deadly force is tightly regulated, must be reasonable and proportionate to the threat, and should be used only as a last resort. Parents should help their young adult understand these laws to avoid tragic mistakes. Iowa Firearms Coalition (IFC) has a guide to these laws and other sources are available online.
Building and Maintaining Shooting Skills
Owning a firearm is a skill that requires regular practice. Encourage your young adult to visit local shooting ranges to hone their marksmanship and safe gun-handling skills. Many ranges in Iowa offer beginner-friendly environments and rental firearms, allowing your child to practice with different handguns before acquiring one. The NRA, USCCA and many other providers offer advanced training programs, such as tactical shooting or situational drills, which can build proficiency and confidence.
Regular practice not only improves accuracy but also reinforces safety habits. Parents can make range visits a bonding activity, modeling responsible behavior and discussing real-world scenarios. Websites like Ammoland.com, Bearing Arms.com and numerous video channels offer tips on developing and improving shooting skills, which can be valuable for young shooters.
A Thoughtful Graduation Gift
For parents: As your young adult navigates this new responsibility, consider gifting them a membership to the Iowa Firearms Coalition. IFC is a leading advocate for Second Amendment rights in Iowa and provides members with resources, legislative updates, and access to a community of responsible gun owners. A membership can help your child stay informed about their rights and connect with mentors who prioritize safety and education. It’s a practical and meaningful way to support their journey into responsible firearm ownership.
By guiding your 18- to 20-year-old through the legal, safety, and skill-building aspects of firearm ownership, you can help them exercise their rights responsibly while prioritizing safety and preparedness.
Finally, remember that until July 1, 2025, Iowa law prohibits persons under the age of 21 possessing a pistol or revolver except while under the direct supervision of their parent, guardian, or spouse who is over the age of 21, or while receiving instruction from an instructor over the age of 21 who has been approved by the parent, guardian, or spouse. Don’t jump the gun!
IFC Warrior Wednesday EP93 – Peter Churchbourne with NRA Hunter Education – Did you know the cream of the crop in FREE interactive hunter education is provided by NRA? Did you know Iowa DNR doesn’t recognize it and instead forces you to buy this training for $49.95? Did you know Iowa DNR will accept NRA Hunter Education from citizens in other states? Did you know Iowa DNR could apply for funding to bolster hunters into the outdoors by simply applying for them if they used the NRA Hunter Ed? There’s more… Peter Churchbourne joins us from NRA to take a deep dive into what they’ve done across the nation. DOGE isn’t the only entity that can fish out waste and bureaucracy.
This is what IA DNR forces on you today:
And this is the possibility before you from NRA:
The FREE NRA Online Hunter Education Course (NRAHE.ORG) is 100% certified by the US National governing body of hunter education (IHEA) to certify students in all 50 states and all US Tribal lands.
It is up to the state fish and wildlife department (IA DNR) to allow its use per state. The decision is usually made by the state hunter education coordinator.
The NRA course is 100% free to everyone. The student and the state both get everything for free. NRA has invested over $4,000,000 from the NRA Foundation to produce this best-in-class, fully interactive course for Americans. The average state integration is $25,000, which the NRA pays for.
We have full-time support staff that help students with issues. Seven days a week.
The NRA course is the ONLY course that offers Pittman-Robertson match credit for EVERY STUDENT. This means the state fish and wildlife department (IA DNR) gets money for every student who takes the course. Oklahoma gets, on average, $800,000 a year for using our course, and it costs them nothing. If IA DNR wanted something additional, like a field day, NRA certifies the number of online completions, which the state can use for matching dollars from the Pittman-Robertson annual funding.
The NRA does NOT use the collected student names for marketing. There is ZERO gain for the NRA Foundation or the NRA for this offering. We allow the states to draw up a contract if they so choose.
Since 2017, we have certified over 250,000 students, and no state wildlife agency has ever removed our course from its offerings.
NRA DOES NOT ask for exclusivity. If the state agency wants to offer another course that people pay for, they are welcome. We believe Americans should have a choice: our course is better than the other paid offerings, and it is free.
There are no gimmicks, no games, just free incredible hunter education.
Take a deep and informative dive into this and decide for yourself what should be done after watching this video exclusive with IFC:
In Libertatem,
Michael Ware – IFC Board
The images above originated from the IA DNR’s current Hunter Ed provider.
IFC Legislative Agenda for the Great State of Iowa includes the following and more to come:
Safer Families Act (provisions of HF654 – passed by the House on April 12, 2023)
Intended to eliminate most of the few remaining “No Guns Zones” in Iowa law
Repeals ban on firearms and ammunition in
Vehicles on the grounds of correctional facilities
Vehicles in publicly accessible parking lots operated by state or local government
Vehicles transporting foster children
School vehicles transporting pupils (authorized armed staff only)
Allows for permit holders to have a concealed handgun in their vehicle when dropping off or picking up at a school
Prohibits state universities and community colleges from banning lawfully possessed weapons in vehicles on their grounds
Repeals the ban on firearms in state-licensed gambling facilities
Repeals the statutes on “manner of conveyance” of long guns in vehicles
Provides for firearm safety Instruction in schools
Provides necessary clean-up of some language in Iowa Code 724 in the wake of the 2021 adoption of permitless carry of weapons
Full 2A Rights for Young Adults
IFC will again seek to remove statutory restrictions on handguns affecting young adults aged 18-20.
2A/4A Protection in Private Parking Lots
IFC will again seek to pass legislation prohibiting employers from disciplining or firing employees who lawfully possess weapons or ammunition in their vehicles on employer-provided parking areas.
Gadsden Flag License Plate to Fund 2A Education and Training
IFC will seek to create an Iowa Gadsden Flag license plate, with funds devoted to 2A education and training, with first priority to IFC or similar groups
Require Iowa Government Agencies to Auction Seized Firearms
IFC will seek to require public disposition of seized firearms, rather than have them all go to the state’s crime lab or be destroyed.
Remove Conservation Officers’ Authority for Warrantless Searches
Investigations on private property must honor Fourth Amendment rights by requiring probable cause, permission or a warrant.
Additionally, there are items in the code that need to be removed and the code streamlined. Things like “724.29 Firearm devices. A person who sells or offers for sale a manual or power-driven trigger activating device constructed and designed so that when attached to a firearm increases the rate of fire of the firearm is guilty of an aggravated misdemeanor. 90 Acts, ch 1147, §1” aren’t relevant, weren’t well constructed at the time, and should cease being in code. To quote my dear friend, Richard Rogers:
“The state has no constitutional or moral authority to regulate the weapons that the people may possess or carry. The law’s proper purpose is to restrain or punish actual bad (criminal) behavior. The Supreme Court has now repeatedly affirmed that Second Amendment rights are fundamental, not second class, rights. A new resolve to strike down government overreach is spreading across the nation and the world. Iowa’s legislators need to take this opportunity and amend or repeal our state’s laws accordingly.”
-Richard Rogers – Iowa Firearms Coalition Board Member, Chief Lobbyist, and NRA Distinguished Advocate Award Winner
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.”
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.
This bill would have created a distinctive vehicle license plate featuring the famous “Don’t Tread on Me” flag. During the War for Independence, the Gadsen flag became the first ensign of the Continental Navy. It has always been an icon of Liberty. Such a license plate would be a great complement to Iowa’s own flag, with its motto, “Our Liberties We Prize and Our Rights We Will Maintain”.
As the Gadsden Flag is frequently associated with Second Amendment rights, the introduction of this license plate would have been an appropriate recognition that nearly two-thirds of Iowa voters recently approved the Freedom Amendment, adding strong protections of the right to keep and bear arms to Iowa’s Constitution.
The bill provided that the fees for this specialty plate would have funded grants for education and training on these fundamental rights. In the awarding of these grants, the bill specified that “first consideration” would go to the official state association of the National Rifle Association and similar organizations. Iowa Firearms Coalition is, of course, the official state association of the NRA.
This bill was important to the future of IFC. It passed the House with bipartisan support and we had expected the Senate to approve it and send it to the Governor. It is not entirely clear why it failed in the Senate, but this is a severe blow to IFC’s plans to use those potentially significant grant monies for important educational initiatives, scholarships, and the like. It is too early to determine if it will be feasible for IFC to try to revive this effort in the next legislature.
Finally, we need to discuss the death of HF654 – the Safer Families Act.
Provisions of this failed bill included:
A much-needed correction to an erroneous word introduced into Chapter 724.15 in 2021. The error has resulted in the Iowa Courts wrongly prohibiting persons sentenced for certain misdemeanors from possessing firearms for two or three years.
“Cleanup” language (Chapters 724, 483A, 321G) in the wake of changes made in 2021, including:
Repeal of the obsolete “Manner of Conveyance” hunting statute that prohibits having a long gun in a vehicle on a public highway unless it and its magazines are unloaded and the gun is broken down or cased
Repeal of obsolete and confusing statutory language regarding carrying firearms on ATVs/snowmobiles
Elimination of several of the few phony “No Guns” zones remaining in Iowa law:
Publicly accessible and non-secure state and local government parking lots
Correctional facility parking lots (in locked vehicles in non-secure lots)
Regents’ university and community colleges (weapons in locked private vehicles)
Vehicles transporting children in foster care
Repeals the prohibition on casino management approving lawful carry of guns
Firearm Safety and Hunter Safety Instruction Programs in Schools
Allowed certain qualified retired law enforcement officers to carry firearms on school grounds
Persons with a Permit to Carry Weapons may have a concealed pistol or revolver in their vehicle while picking up or dropping off at a school
After a strenuous multi-year effort by IFC to craft and champion this important bill, it passed the House during the first session of the 90th General Assembly last year. The bill in its final form had dropped several provisions IFC had sought, but it included the most critical ones and laid the groundwork for more advancements in the future. Unfortunately, due to several other controversial issues taking up much of the Representatives’ time and attention last year, the bill was passed and sent to the Senate very late in the session. It also contained a provision regarding insurance coverage for schools that choose to train and arm staff members that turned out to be too problematic and needed to be modified or removed. For this and other reasons, the Senate failed to take up the Safer Families Act, but IFC worked to ensure that it was put on the unfinished business calendar. IFC fully expected that the Senate would take it up this year, amend it as necessary and send it back to the House.
Unfortunately, various circumstances combined to prevent that from happening. IFC worked until the very last days of the session to overcome the obstacles but were ultimately unsuccessful. Therefore, we begin now to plan how to revive these important legislative initiatives in the 91st General Assembly, most likely in a different form.
The Safer Families Act was an omnibus bill, meaning that it had several divisions dealing with separate parts of the Iowa Code. Such bills have both advantages and disadvantages. An advantage is that if you can get such a multi-part bill through the committee process and to the floor, there need be only one debate and final vote, whereas separate bills with the same provisions each have to pass through the committee process and then require separate debate and votes on the floor of the legislative chamber. Of course, an obvious disadvantage of a multi-part bill is that various parts may find different legislators in opposition, often making it difficult to gather sufficient support for the whole. IFC has had some great successes with omnibus bills, including the massive and momentous one in 2017. The permitless carry bill in 2021 was a mini-omnibus. However, it is IFC’s sense that going forward, we will need to focus on multiple smaller bills, each with a narrower scope. It certainly seems that tactic will bring a greater chance of success in the Senate.
Iowa Firearms Coalition intends to continue to build on our record of success in ensuring that the Iowa government recognizes, protects, and respects our fundamental right to keep and bear arms. We will continue to work to maximize individual liberty by streamlining and clarifying Iowa’s laws on weapons and use of force, and by eliminating unnecessary, obsolete, or unconstitutional regulations whenever possible.
To do this, we need your help! We need our current members to renew or upgrade their memberships and to encourage their friends, family, and acquaintances to join as well. IFC’s mission is to protect the civil rights of all – and there is strength in numbers.
Additionally, especially throughout the primary and general election campaign seasons, contact your Representative and Senator. Let them get to know you and your concerns, especially regarding Second Amendment-related issues. If you want to eliminate phony “No Guns” zones, TELL them. If you think that schools should offer elementary students vital firearm safety instruction, TELL them. If you want to be able to voluntarily contribute to important education and training on the right to keep and bear arms by buying a “Don’t Tread on Me” Gadsden license plate, TELL them! Seek them out at events in your community or when you see them at the store or on the street. Let them get to know YOU and what you expect of them.
Together we can continue the restoration of essential liberty that is represented – and ultimately protected by – our natural and fundamental right to keep and bear arms.
-Richard Rogers – IFC Board Member and Chief Lobbyist
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