“Sit down and be quiet, the adults will handle this,” –- that’s the message coming out of Senate Judiciary Chairman Brad Zaun right now here in Des Moines.
With the legislature about to gavel in here for the week, I hope you’ll take a moment to contact Senator Zaun right away and urge him to support SF 262, Stand-Your-Ground law for Iowa!
You see, there’s an old game in Des Moines amongst most organizations and the legislators in charge, and it goes like this: “You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours.”
Practically speaking, it means that most legislators know that most organizations in Des Moines exist to protect one political party or the other –- and so those groups cover for politicians that kill their bills because that’s just what you do!
But that’s not what Iowa Gun Owners has ever been about.
We are not interested in protecting political parties, or specific politicians, or anyone else at the Capitol.
Nor are we interested in being invited to the Grand Ave. cocktail hour where so many back-room deals are cut and compromises made.
Iowa Gun Owners exists for two reasons only: to protect and expand the Second Amendment freedoms of every law abiding Iowan, and to expose the legislators who are standing in the way.
If legislators in Des Moines choose to get all red-faced mad and want to rant and rave because Iowa Gun Owners dares to hold them accountable -– that’s fine with us.
If they want to have their faux conservative friends in the media attack us -– that’s fine with us, too.
All we care about is whether the politicians in Des Moines are going to do their job, or not!
Chairman Zaun can deflect and counter attack all he wants. The facts are simple:
- Gun owners worked their tails off last fall to elect a pro-gun majority to see Stand-Your-Ground law enacted in 2017, that’s how the Senate was flipped in the first place.
- Two dozen of Senator Zaun’s colleagues have already stood tall for the Second Amendment and cosponsored SF 262.
- Senator Zaun initially co-sponsored so that we would tell people he was on board, and then, the day the bill dropped, withdrew his support and scratched out his name from the co-sponsor sheet.
- As Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Zaun is in the exact same position as former Senator Steve Sodders –- he gets to decide whether Stand-Your-Ground lives or dies. So of course we were alarmed when he withdrew his support from this bill.
Now Senator Zaun is saying that he’ll be attaching Stand-Your-Ground law to another gun bill that’s yet to be filed or made available for public inspection.
If that other gun bill is clean -– not watered down with bad amendments or bad language –- then that’s fine.
But Zaun is refusing to allow that bill to be made available for review by anyone, even his own colleagues in the Iowa legislature!
Why, what is there to hide?
As we reported last week, capitol insiders are reporting to us that the “Sodders Amendment” may be snuck back into this bill!
As you’ll remember, this was the language that would create a searchable, online database of every Iowan with a permit to purchase or carry handguns.
More, we’re learning that this bill would also allow judges to designate county courthouse complexes as “Gun Free Zones” –- meaning that you would be disarmed any time you’re doing business in the county courthouse.
When we ask about these provisions in the Capitol, no one can give a straight answer on this!
This is exactly why it’s so important to have solid, clean standalone bills that can receive an up or down vote!
So please contact Senator Zaun today and insist that he personally support SF 262 and move it through the Judiciary Committee right away!
You can contact him in the following ways by:
>>> Calling him at (515)306-7868
>>> Calling him at (515)276-2025
>>> Emailing him at [email protected]
>>> Leaving him a Facebook message, by clicking here.
Your message is very simple: we want Stand-Your-Ground law in 2017, we don’t want it watered down, and we don’t want an omnibus gun bill if it’s going to be packaged with anti-gun provisions!
Please contact him right away.
While you’re at it, please remember to take a moment and thank the following Senators, who have cosponsored this important legislation.
They are Senators’ Bertrand, Anderson, Chelgren, Johnson (Craig), Smith, Behn, Edler, Rozenboom, Brown, Breitbach, Zumbach, Schultz, Chapman, Kraayenbrink, Feenstra, Guth, Kapucian, Johnson (David), Lofgren, Segebart, Sinclair, Costello, Schneider, and Garrett.
You can reach them by email, and you can find their email addresses by clicking here.
You can also call them via the switchboard at 515-281-3371.
The bottom line is that we’ve worked too hard and fought for too long to see this bill blocked.
We’ve worked too hard to see this bill watered down.
And we’ve worked too hard to flip the Senate and obtain a pro-gun majority just to see the “Sodders Amendment” and other gun control provisions slid into otherwise good gun bills!
If saying that means that we’re not “team players” in the Capitol, well, we’re just fine with that.
Call Senator Zaun now!
Now saying that he’ll support the concept in a different bill, Zaun won’t show anyone the language of the new bill.
But insiders are reporting to us that this omnibus bill may contain the “Sodders Amendment,” which establishes a database of all permit holders here in Iowa!
That’s why we need clean, solid language to receive a simple up or down vote.
Twenty four of Senator Zaun’s colleagues have already stood up for the Second Amendment by cosponsoring this bill!
Please contact Zaun using the information listed above, and urge him to move the bill through the Judiciary Committee right away!
