Outrageous! Back-stabbers! Liars!
These are just some of the words that gun owners have been using to describe the Iowa Senate Judiciary Committee after they announced they killed Constitutional Carry this year in their committee — and lashed out at Iowa Gun Owners in the process!
I have to tell you, it’s hard to disagree with this sentiment when you consider what gun owners have done here in Iowa in the last few years.
After all, working together, IGO members flipped the Iowa House and Governor’s mansion in 2010, throwing out dozens of anti-gun lawmakers who voted against Constitutional Carry.
In 2016, Iowa Gun Owners’ members like you gave us the resources to run a massive program to expose anti-gun State Senators like Mike Gronstal, Steve Sodders, and others.
This program was such a success, gun owners flipped the Senate on election night in 2016 — giving Iowa a pro-gun majority for the first time since the late 1990’s!
So to have the Senate Judiciary Committee do all they can to block the advancement of Constitutional Carry, despite its 15 cosponsors and the fact that we passed it through a sub-committee, is making gun owners furious across the state!
If you agree that it’s time for immediate action on Constitutional Carry (S.F. 165) then please sign and return the petition that we have prepared for you IMMEDIATELY!
As you’ll see, these petitions are addressed to the Senate Majority Leader Jack Whitver, Senate President Charles Schneider, and Jerry Behn, the Senate President Pro-Tem.
The message is simple: do your job and pass Constitutional Carry through the Iowa Senate right away!
You see, far from being dead in the water, Constitutional Carry can move forward in any number of ways including being amended onto another gun bill or by being reintroduced by Senate leaders using what’s known as a ‘leadership bill.’
Leadership bills are mostly immune from the legislative calendar, meaning that although S.F. 165 did not pass through the Judiciary Committee in time, Constitutional Carry can still move forward –- if Senate leaders want it to.
Constitutional Carry is an extremely simple bill, despite what the media and Bloomberg-backed organizations are trying to say about it.
The bill would simply:
>>> Allow law abiding Iowans to be able to carry a firearm
without having to first beg government permission or add
their name to a centralized database.
>>> Restore the right of law abiding Iowans to be able to buy
and sell firearms between legally eligible individuals (think
your adult son or your lifelong friend) without having to get
permission from the government.
This bill is so popular with gun owners that it’s now law in a whopping sixteen states including two of our neighboring states: Missouri and South Dakota!
Even more, three state have signed Constitutional Carry into law in just the last couple of weeks, including South Dakota, Oklahoma, and Kentucky!
So with so many states advancing this bill, you may be asking, what is the hold up in Des Moines?
Well, one of the reasons this bill is not moving is because of Judiciary Committee member and State Senator Dan Dawson — who broke the written promise he made to gun owners when he first ran for office.
You see, when Dan Dawson first ran for office in 2016, he signed the Iowa Gun Owners candidate survey 100%, which included his promise to cosponsor and vote for Constitutional Carry.
Armed with Dawson’s survey and a decade’s worth of information about Mike Gronstal obstructing advancement of Constitutional Carry, Iowa Gun Owners went to work!
Thanks to the generosity of so many Iowa Gun Owners members, we were able to run a massive program in Council Bluffs, exposing Gronstal and his record.
Just a portion of the program that YOU FUNDED included:
*** Over three dozen 30-second TV ads on channels like KMTV,
WOWT, and KPTM that showed gun owners which candidates
were standing in the way of their gun rights in Des Moines;
*** Dozens of full length 60-second radio ads on stations like KFAB
that gave gun owners specifics on the bills that Gronstal was
holding back;
*** A targeted social media program, using a combination of videos
exposing Mike Gronstal, videos that were seen by over 50,000
people in Senate District 8.
I could go on, as IGO also sent out mountains of direct mail and ‘slicks’ and even went door-to-door spreading our ‘Gun Rights Scorecard’ to over 5,000 homes in Council Bluffs.
When we added it all up, Iowa Gun Owners spent close to $40,000 in this race, in large part because Dan Dawson gave us his written word that he would fight for Constitutional Carry.
But in 2017 and again in 2018, Senator Dawson broke that promise and refused to cosponsor the bill.
And this year, despite all of the work that gun owners did in his race, Senator Dawson arrogantly refused to cosponsor the bill, breaking his word for the third year in a row!
And then, when gun owners needed him more than ever in the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Dawson refused to support the bill, ensuring that it did not come out of the committee!
And that’s why I hope you’ll sign the petition that we’ve prepared for you right away!
As you’ll see, the petition insists that that Dawson’s colleagues who run the Republican caucus and the Senate do their job, holding their caucus members accountable and advance Constitutional Carry as a ‘leadership bill.’
It’s one thing for aggressive, Bloomberg-backed Democrats like Mike Gronstal and Steve Sodders to stand in the way of this bill — but for Constitutional Carry to be derailed by our ‘friends’ in Des Moines is unacceptable!
Senators Whitver, Schneider, and Behn need to hear this message LOUD AND CLEAR.
Sure, it would be easy for us to gloss over this betrayal by the Republican controlled Senate and pretend that they are our friends and that ‘we just need to work harder next session.’
But that would be a lie.
And Iowa Gun Owners has never existed to play insider games in Des Moines, and to protect lawmakers at the expense of our right to keep and bear arms.
The truth is, we are being betrayed by our so-called ‘friends,’ and it’s time that our ‘friends’ understand that we are only willing to back them and their candidates at election time if they keep their promises and fight for us in Des Moines.
So please sign and submit your petition right away!
Once you’ve signed your petition, I hope you’ll consider a generous donation, too.
We are currently spending large amounts of your resources via social media and email programs, all designed to crank up the heat in Des Moines!
It’s expensive, but we need to keep the heat up on these politicians now more than ever before!
I know you agree.
So please sign your petition and please also make your most generous contribution, right away!
For Iowa,
Aaron Dorr
Executive Director
Iowa Gun Owners
P.S. In a stunning act of betrayal, the Republican Controlled Senate Judiciary Committee has refused to advance Constitutional Carry for the second year in a row!
More than that, Republican Senators like Dan Dawson are getting away with breaking their written campaign pledges to cosponsor and support this bill.
To advance Constitutional Carry, we need a ‘leadership bill’ filed by one of the leaders of the Senate.
>>> Click HERE to Join Iowa Gun Owners <<<
