Iowa firearms legislation update

Des Moines Gun Rights Examiner ^ | 30 March, 2012 | Sean McClanahan

[marktwain]

The second half of Iowa's 84th General Assembly is beginning to wind down, and it appears that Iowa firearms owners are going to be left in the cold with nearly everything they had hoped to accomplish this year. A long list of bills was presented to the House of Representatives, but nearly all of them are going to die due to inaction.

Many of the bills died before they even saw the light of day. Once introduced in the Iowa House of Representatives, firearms related bills go to the House Public Safety Committee. The Chairman of that Committee is Rep. Clel Baudler (R-58). Rep. Baudler is also a member of the NRA Board of Directors, so one would think that he would be sympathetic to getting firearms bills pushed out to the full House for debate.

Not so.

Rep. Baudler was single-handedly able to kill the following bills by assigning them to subcommittees that never debated them, and he never pushed to have them brought before the full Public Safety Committee:

* HF 208 – Disposal of firearms by law enforcement agencies

* HF 209 – Firearms training for domestic violence victims

* HF 320 – Emergency Powers Act

* HF 2113 – Permitless carry of firearms

* HF 2115 – Legislation “clean up”

* HF 2116 – Repeal of the Iowa Permit to Acquire

* HF 2160 – Allows carry at the Iowa State Fairgrounds

* HF 2198 – Allows NFA weapons (this bill never got assigned to a subcommittee)

Two bills made it to the full House of Representatives, but never received a date for debate and vote. The fact that they died there falls at the feet of Rep. Kraig Paulsen (R-35). Those bills are:

[marktwain]

Getting legislation passed is very complicated. Unless you have someone watching the legislature, who is very familiar with the process and personalities, it can be difficult to determine what happened.

Sean McClanahan seems to have his finger on the pulse.

[A Strict Constructionist]

Questions that must be answered are:
1. Tactical withdrawal?
2. RINOS using NRA as cover?
3. Traitors to the public?