News

New gun law sees increase in applications

Sarah McCarthy
Staff Reporter

Iowa became the 38th state on January 1, 2011 to reword the law to say “shall issue” rather than “may issue” in regards to a sheriff’s ability to issue gun permits.

This change makes it much easier for anyone to obtain a gun permit and carry a gun on them in this state.

In the past, a sheriff reserved the right to deny a permit to someone using individual judgment for each applicant. Now sheriffs are required to issue permits to any law-abiding citizen with only a few exceptions named in the new law.

This was just one of the concerns Cerro Gordo County Sheriff Kevin Pals addressed concerning the new law.

“People can drink and carry legally now, it only becomes illegal at .08 blood alcohol content,” Pals said. “I personally believe that guns and alcohol do not mix.”

He also addressed the issue of the law that pertains to what is known as “open carry.”

“People have also brought up the issue that they were surprised about the open carry part,” Pals said. “People don’t have to conceal their gun, I think that might take some people off guard.”

According to Pals, there have been a large number of individuals who have applied to carry since the law went into effect.

“The first few weeks the numbers (of gun permit applications) increased drastically,” Pals said. “We have received 277 permit applications, compared to the roughly 385 applications that we normally see in a year. That number is a little alarming considering it’s only the first month, but that might slow down.”

Despite it now being legal to carry a gun into a grocery store, movie theater and shopping mall, it is still illegal to bring weapons on school campuses including NIACC.

NIACC has prohibited the practice in the past.

“NIACC is not changing the policy (concerning weapons on campus), we’ve never had an issue and don’t anticipate problems,” Terri Ewers, dean of Student Development, said about the new law.

Ewers also added that NIACC will not conduct searches on students unless there is probable cause, in which case, the police would be called.

“If I knew that someone had a gun on campus, I would go to that person and tell them our policy,” Ewers said.

If a person well aware of the policy still brought a gun onto NIACC premises the individual would be charged with trespassing.

However, NIACC does have a team in place to work to prevent issues such as gun violence from occurring on campus.

The Threat Assessment Team, a group of six members, meets every Monday morning to conduct a Campus Climate Assessment according to Ewers.

Ewers said NIACC also plans to post notices throughout every building on campus that read, “Notice: No weapons allowed. The possession of any and all dangerous weapons is prohibited on these premises” in order to ensure all students, faculty and visitors are aware of the school’s policy.

However, as of now new gun permits will continue to be issued daily in Iowa and a gun sighting in a convenience store will no longer be grounds to call the police.

After the recent seemingly epidemic-like instances of gun violence sweeping the nation lately, undoubtedly, the debate over this new law will continue.