Gaffney

In addition to the local, state and federal races affecting Marshall County during this election cycle, voters who go to the polls will notice a proposed amendment to the Iowa Constitution on the back of their ballot that would add the following language: “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. The sovereign state of Iowa affirms and recognizes this right to be a fundamental individual right. Any and all restrictions of this right shall be subject to strict scrutiny.”

If voters approve the amendment, Iowa would become the 45th state in the nation to enshrine the right to keep and bear arms in its Constitution. As Marshall County Attorney Jordan Gaffney explained, it would differ from the federal Second Amendment because the state amendment refers only to the right to keep and bear arms and does not include language about a well-regulated militia.

Gaffney also provided insight on what the “strict scrutiny” threshold might mean in court.

“It’s a really high legal burden that you have. For a specific law or regulation to be upheld, there has to be what we call a compelling state interest. So the government has to have a compelling interest at stake for the particular law, and the law has to be narrowly tailored,” he said. “The scope of the law has to be really narrow to justify regulating that particular compelling state interest.”

So far, support and opposition to the amendment, which will require a simple majority to pass, have mostly split predictably along party lines, with gun rights groups and Republicans — locally, Sen. Jeff Edler (R-State Center) and Rep. Dean Fisher (R-Montour) — favoring it and gun control organizations and Democrats urging Iowans to vote ‘No.’

Both Gaffney and Fisher said they believed that restrictions like not allowing convicted felons to own firearms would still fit well within the boundaries of the new law if the amendment passes.

Because Iowa already has a pre-emption law that bans cities and counties from imposing gun restrictions beyond those the state legislature has approved, the amendment wouldn’t necessarily target specific restrictions in certain municipalities.

Fisher counts himself as a ‘champion’ of the amendment, having voted for it twice in the Iowa House.

“It complements and strengthens the Second Amendment,” Fisher said. “It’s simply the right thing to do so that we remain free and that we put limits on any future legislature or court to restrict our rights. It’s aimed at the future and guaranteeing that right in the decades and centuries to come.”

Edler is also a strong supporter of the amendment and hopes voters will approve it at the ballot box whether they have done so already or plan to on election day.

“I think it’s important we continue to protect the rights of individual citizens from Iowa to ensure that they have Second Amendment rights. When you get into large metropolitan areas, they don’t necessarily see things the way we do here in rural Iowa,” Edler said. “But yeah, I will stand beside the Second Amendment to ensure that the citizens of Iowa continue to have those rights even with what the federal government may or may not do.”

Rep. Sue Cahill, a Democrat from Marshalltown, takes a different view on the proposal, arguing that it would simply make it harder to enact any gun control laws while adding the caveat that she supports the federal Second Amendment.

“It makes it more difficult to enforce any local or state laws because they will be challenged. They can be challenged in court, saying ‘Nope, we have this basically kind of a free rein gun law. Anyone is allowed to keep and bear arms. And if you’re saying that felons or domestic abusers shouldn’t have them, we can take you to court and prove that they should be able to have guns,'” she said. “It is a complicated issue, and I’ve tried my best to understand it in as easy of words as I can, and it just really means that all of our gun laws are gonna be looked at through a much finer toothed comb… There will really be fewer gun laws that are deemed constitutional, and I believe there are some common sense gun laws that we need to have.”

In 2011, Iowa became a “shall issue” state for concealed carry permits, so the burden for a county sheriff to deny such a permit is already high. Marshall County Sheriff Joel Phillips said he still works with residents who wish to go through the process and navigate any potential confusion. So far this year, about 400 permits have been issued, which Phillips noted is actually a sharp dropoff from the average year when the figure is closer to 1,000.

During an interview, Phillips speculated that the passage of the amendment may lead to less work for sheriff’s offices like his in the permitting process, but he isn’t entirely sure yet what it might mean from a law enforcement perspective. Conversely, it could mean more work in monitoring the revocation of gun rights for individuals accused of crimes before and after their cases are adjudicated.

“That’s gonna add a little extra work for us to kind of keep track of that stuff, and then also with the mental health commitments and prohibitors,” Phillips said. “When those come through, we’re given limited information, and sometimes those systems that talk to each other through the prohibitors, it’s delayed. So obviously we want to make sure if some of those individuals are prohibited through those mental health commitments, we want to take care of those. I guess it’s gonna kinda come down to how that last sentence in that amendment, you know, any and all restrictions will be subject to strict scrutiny, it’s all gonna come down to interpretation.”

While the sheriff’s office will focus on enforcing the law as it is interpreted if the amendment does pass, it seems inevitable that much of what it actually means from a practical standpoint will be determined in courtrooms around the state.

“You never know until you get to court, which is kind of where every attorney lives,” Gaffney said.

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Contact Robert Maharry

at 641-753-6611 ext. 255 or s

meyer@timesrepblican.com.com