IA: Concealed Carry Law Changed

(Des Moines, Iowa) Effective January 1, 2011, a revised law for concealed weapons permits will take away discretionary authority from county sheriffs.

Changing the language of the law from "may" to "shall" in Senate File 2379 "standardizes the issuance of concealed weapons permits across the state," according to state Rep. Clel Baudler, R-Adair, who was active in the bill's construction.

"The law was drafted in a way to keep some groups of people from keeping weapons concealed - a certain class of people," Baudler said. "Hopefully, now there will be no room for discrimination. The old law was highly discriminate."

Baudler said, in its early years, the concealed weapons laws in this state were primitive compared to today's qualifying standards. The sheriff of each county could essentially pick and choose who was fit for carrying concealed weapons and who was not - sometimes based on personal and discriminatory points of view, he said.

The level of difficulty in obtaining a permit depended, for one thing, on the county in which the applicant lived. Laws were not consistent or balanced across the state, Baudler said.

It's possible that some of the sheriffs won't like the change.