Posted on 02/15/2008 11:00:44 AM PST by kiriath_jearim
There was an outcry at the statehouse Wednesday from county sheriffs objecting to a bill they say would make it harder for them to deny permits to carry concealed weapons.
The bill changes Iowa law to say the sheriff shall issue a permit except for a limited list of reasons, including felony convictions and drug addiction. If a permit's denied a written explanation would be required.
Representative Clel Baudler, a Republican from Greenfield, says there needs to be more consistency statewide in issuing the permits. Dubuque county Sheriff Kenneth Runde said that won't work. He said if he knows someone in his community has assaulted his wife but never been convicted, he wants to be able to deny a permit.
Runde says:"And we're going to give people like that permits to carry? That's not gonna happen, and I won't give 'em to those people. Just because they didn't get convicted 'cause their wives wouldn't testify, doesn't give them a right to carry a gun that they may end up using in a domestic violence situation."
Dewey Hildebrandt is sheriff of Bremer County. Hildebrandt says there are some cases where people might not have been found by the courts to be mentally unstable or unfit, there are situations where the sheriffs know the individuals personally and they are not the type they would want to see carrying weapons.
Story County Sheriff Paul Fitzgerald said explaining why a permit is denied could interfere with criminal investigations. "Taking the discretion away from sheriffs who have the intimate knowledge is going to be a disservice to the people in those communities," Fitzgerald says. Fitzgerald says the responsibility has got to fall back into the the sheriff and the sheriff has to stand up on why he did not give the person a permit.
Representative Baudler, a retired state trooper, says sheriffs are protecting their turf. He cited an example of permits unfairly denied for no apparent reason, including a prison guard who was not allowed to carry a concealed weapon for private protection outside the prison.
But it will surely stop those pesky wives from defending themselves! < /more sarcasm >
Bill
This would be good news if it passes!
For those unfamiliar with Dubuque County, it contains the city of Dubuque, which is increasingly resembles Madison, WI in attitude. I had an Iowa CCW permit for eleven years, but could not renew it when I moved to DBQ County.
Sheriff Runde (D) is only continuing the policy which was put in place by his predecessor Leo Kennedy (D) or some paleo-Kennedy (D). The former sheriff personally told me in 1994 that his office would issue no CCW permits to anyone who was not a law officer or approved security guard.
Unless things have changed, that policy seemed to allow a few "citizen" permits for "important" people who have enough pull with the local Democrat machine, but nobody is supposed to be aware of that bit of hypocrisy. Now that Dubuque is becoming notorious for stabbings and racial contretemps, one might think that the law-abiding taxpayer could reasonably expect some welcome help in allowing citizens to legally protect ourselves from some of our new - and dangerous - neighbors. But one would apparently be wrong.
Mr. niteowl77
In our Iowa county, the sheriff doesn’t like issuing CCW. My husband has a Florida non resident permit but can’t carry here because the sheriff basically only gives them if you say you regularly carry more than $500 cash, and the permit is only valid in such cases. Which is total garbage.
If this gets passed my husband and I will both get permits.
Note to idiot sheriff: you don’t need a CCW license at home. CCW does NOTHING for an abusive spouse who is going to use a gun on his wife.
‘The idea that a sheriff will know everyone in his county and will know who should and should not be allowed to carry a gun may have had some validity 150 years ago.”
I’m sure glad our politicians adhere to the Constitution. I’m betting that severe gun control laws will up for Presidential approval with 6 months of the new President. We’ve already seen Obama’s brain child.
They’ve had that here in Jersey in modified form for years; you have to prove to the sheriff that you NEED a carry permit to obtain one. All that reluctant sheriff has to do is say “he couldn’t prove he needed it”.
I wonder if anyone denied a permit who was a victim of violence with no defense (or his estate) has ever won (or even filed) a suit against a county for denying it?
You gotta know the territory. There will never, EVER, be a non-Democrat platform sheriff in DBQ Co, and the Governor of Iowa is Chet "Lumpy Rutherford" Culver, who will let illegal immigrants carry openly before he'll let a taxpayer carry concealed. It is a benighted place in various and sundry ways.
Mr. niteowl77
Sheriff Runde needs to be removed from office and then run out of town on a rail.
L
Don’t hold your breath Love. Someone puts out a bill with this change almost every year sometimes more. I think one even passed once but got vetoed.
“’CCW does NOTHING for an abusive spouse who is going to use a gun on his wife.”
yeah but it sounds good and almost guarantees any man is not going to argue. Socialists rarely let anything like facts or reality effect their mindset.
I don't know about Iowa, but in Texas, the most powerful lobby is the state government.
Typically, sheriffs in rural, semi-rural, and most suburban counties enthusiastically give out cc permits, but they routinely deny them in the welfare centers/parasite nests (”cities”). At least, that’s how it seems to be in Pennsylvania.
Same in Connecticut.
Likewise for Arizona, with our shall-issue CCW and open carry.
Same here in Washington with our shall issue no-course-required CPL.
In fact the only safe place to be is a pubic school or a college campus where no one gets hurts because guns are banned!
(Yes i'm being ironic)
Yeah, I don’t know the players...
Or you could just use the weapon issued to you.
Tacoma police chief shoots wife, kills himself
By LEWIS KAMB, PHUONG CAT LE, ANGELA GALLOWAY and RUTH TEICHROEB SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTERS
GIG HARBOR - Tacoma's police chief shot his wife and then himself in the parking lot of a strip mall Saturday afternoon while the couple's two young children were nearby.
David Brame died at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Tacoma about 6 p.m. His wife Crystal remained in critical condition today at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.
On Friday, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported that Crystal Brame, 35, had accused her husband in court papers of pointing his service revolver at her and trying to choke her during two separate incidents in the past six months.
The couple were going through a divorce.
Brame, a veteran officer who rose through the ranks to become chief in January 2002, denied those allegations in court papers filed in King County Superior Court last month.
Saturday's shooting happened at about 3:10 p.m., said Pierce County sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer.
"We don't believe other people are involved," Troyer said. "The victims were the chief of the Tacoma Police Department and his wife. We believe he shot her and then shot himself."
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