In their ongoing effort to clamp down on the 2nd Amendment rights of all Iowans, the ultra-liberal Des Moines Register came out with a story Sunday where they expressed their shock and dismay that Iowans with diminished vision would be allowed to carry a weapon for self-defense.
Frankly, when we read this story, we yawned.
After all, it’s the Des Moines Register, who cares what they think?
This is, after all, the same “newspaper” that urged people to tie pro-gun legislators, “to the back of a Chevy pickup truck and drag them around a parking lot until they saw the light on gun control.”
This is what passes for objective journalism at the Des Moines Register these days.
But as this story was picked up by national news outlets across the nation, we began to get calls in our office about this.
Just moments ago I was interviewed by CBS News in Washington, DC, where a confused young reporter was stunned than we didn’t have a problem with Iowans with diminished vision having the same means of self-defense than you and I enjoy.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t believe that just because someone may be a senior citizen or suffered injuries in combat that affects their vision, that they should automatically lose their right of self-defense.
In fact, as I just finished telling this reporter, aren’t people who are disadvantaged in this way even MORE likely to need firearms for self-defense – as the criminals in society always target the more helpless amongst us to rape and kill?
Does a young woman, about to be raped, really need to see with 20/20 vision in order to shoot a man who is on top of her?
Should the elderly woman who fired a shot and missed a violent attacker who was breaking into her home on the East side of Des Moines a few years ago just surrender her life to a criminal because she’s old and can’t see well?
Does an elderly man, out for a walk, have to just lie down and die when being attacked by a dog because liberal hysterics say he can’t carry his .38?
Of course not!
What’s more, it’s insulting to gun owners and the people of Iowa in general to assume that Iowa’s senior citizens or others who have diminished capacities are going to pull out their gun and just start firing in a haphazard manner that results in the death of an innocent bystander.
Shame on the Des Moines Register for implying this!
This law has been in effect since the end of 2010 – how many cases of this sort have you heard about?
“Where does this end,” I asked the reporter. If someone has lost hearing in one ear, and is consequently unable to react as fast to a charging criminal as you or I would, should we just take gun rights away from that person too?
If someone suffers a stroke and is undergoing therapy to regain the use of his arms – must the state of Iowa come in and seize his firearms until a doctor clears him?
This is ridiculous and offensive to Iowans and continues to solidify the Des Moines Register’s incredible hostility towards gun owners in this state.
If the liberal media and their anti-gun allies in the General Assembly would spend half as much time trying to keep violent felons from getting released from prison for “time served” as they do trying to take guns away from law abiding Iowans – we’d all be better off.
We’ll have to wait and see what happens in the next session of the General Assembly as capitol insiders are already reporting to Iowa Gun Owners that a bi-partisan effort may be underway to restrict the gun rights of certain Iowans.
IGO will be watching for this and will alert you if anyone tries to take our gun rights away from any Iowans! We don’t discriminate against anyone who wants to keep their gun rights – no matter what kind of disabilities you may have.
For Freedom,
Aaron Dorr
Executive Director
P.S. While it comes as no surprise to IGO members, the overtly anti-gun Des Moines Register put out a frantic “news story” yesterday calling attention to the fact that Iowa code does not prohibit Iowans who don’t see well from carrying a gun for self-defense.
Now anti-gun media is buzzing all over the country saying we need to clamp down on gun rights here in Iowa – as though we have had a single issue of an Iowa senior citizen mowing down a group of school children in his attempt to shoot someone trying to attack him.
In fact, it’s the college girl who can’t see as well, the old WWII vet who’s in his 90’s, the elderly farm wife who is a widow, that violent thugs are MOST likely to try to rape and kill! It’s these very citizens who need their right of self-defense more than anyone!
Sadly, capitol insiders are already telling us that there is a bi-partisan effort underway to clamp down on the gun rights of law abiding Iowans.
IGO will not sit quietly while more and more Iowans lose their right to self-defense! If you agree with us, please chip in $10 right now to help us prepare for this looming fight