Not Ready For Guns? Inside Iowa’s New Concealed Carry Weapon Standards

[KillShot]

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa â€" Iowa is going on three weeks as a “shall issue” state for acquiring or carrying a concealed weapon.

The law, signed last spring by former Governor Chet Culver, set a single standard for getting the permit but also took away the discretion from the sheriffs in Iowa’s 99 counties.

“In the current law, there is no requirement that you hold or fire the weapon,” said Linn County Sheriff Brian Gardner on Thursday. “The flaw in the law is that it doesn’t require hands-on training.”

Gardner said that he believes a person is a liability if they have a permit but have never held a gun nor fired one.

“I’ve said many times that I am in favor of a ‘shall issue’ philosophy,” said Gardner, who has been in office since 2009. “However, I think you need to have the ‘shall issue’ components and the public safety component.”

He said the issue now is that people are able to secure the PCW (Permit to Carry Weapons) paperwork by merely going to a class and not demonstrating they can fire a weapon in a proper manner.

Until this year, the Linn County Izaak Walton League in Cedar Rapids served a 10-county area of Eastern Iowa, according to board member Rex Glasgow.

“The class lasted four hours long and consisted of a written test,” said Glasgow, who serves as an NRA Certified Instructor at Izaak Walton. “After that, they (the applicant) would have 60 days to be able to qualify with the shooting portion.”

The LCIWL still holds PCW classes, including the shooting range test, twice a month on Saturdays.

Glasgow said the shooting portion was made up of ten rounds at a sheet from 30 feet away. An applicant would have two attempts to pass the range requirement.

“54% failed both the first and second attempts,” said Glasgow.

Now Glasgow said he is concerned people who are unable to pass their shooting test are obtaining their permits from other vendors. It’s perfectly legal now in Iowa, as long as an applicant completes the handgun training course. But is it safe for society?

“Ham radio operator, scuba diver, pilot, you have to have training to show proficiency to demonstrate you have the skills,” said Glasgow. “This is one situation where you don’t have to and you are carrying a lethal weapon.”

At the Sheriff’s Office, Gardner said many applicants he talks to insist a shooting test is a good idea but that does not mean they will follow through.

“The vast majority think it would be a good idea to have a shooting component and they said they would take it but it’s not required so they are not going to,” said Gardner.

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Source - KRCG.COM