Des Moines, IA- Early voting for the Iowa General Election is underway, and a proposed amendment to the Iowa Constitution is on the ballot.
Richard Rogers of the Iowa Firearms Coalition tells Radio Iowa that gun rights advocates began lobbying for the amendment 12 years ago, after realizing that Iowa was one of six states without the protection of the right to keep and bear arms in the state constitution.
The amendment states that any gun restrictions would be judged by a legal standard known as strict scrutiny, and Rogers said that the US Supreme Court established an even more strict legal standard over the summer.
“Frankly, the strict scrutiny thing I believe has largely been muted, but we can’t go back 12 years and rewrite the amendment and this is an all-or-nothing deal, I think,” Rogers says. “We’ll have this one chance and we won’t see another opportunity to put this in the state constitution in our lifetime.”
Critics of the amendment say if the new amendment is adopted, it will be nearly impossible to pass new gun regulations in the state. Linn County Sheriff Brian Gardner has joined a coalition of about 30 groups, called Iowans for Responsible Gun Laws.
“We are not anti-gun, we are not anti-Second Amendment and we are not here to suggest taking your guns away,” Gardner said. “We are, however, here to inform you of a very poorly worded amendment that definitely will not make Iowans safer.”
