This report is going to make you mad. It made me mad just sitting in IGO’s office typing away at the keyboard. The Iowa House adjourned for the year early this morning – but not before killing your 2nd Amendment rights for another year.

To really understand the depths of the betrayal you need to understand the details.

By now you know that House Leadership, Republican House Leadership specifically, sent Stand- Your-Ground and Constitutional Carry legislation to die in their handpicked Judiciary committee after Rep. Shaw filed these bills for us in January.

At the same time, our bill to remove the current law that makes you a criminal for teaching your children to shoot a handgun prior to age 14 was killed in the House Public Safety Committee at the hands of Chairman Clel Baudler.

We have discussed at length why it’s important to make these legislators vote on gun bills – to identify who is pro-gun and who is not.

That’s why we worked with Rep. Shaw to add these bills to the Standings Bill where they could be debated at the end of the session – ensuring that you and I would be able to get a vote.

This is standard practice in Des Moines. As the last bill of the year, the number of amendments filed onto the Standings Bill can require DAYS of debate to get through.

The minute the Standings Bill was filed this year our amendments were attached to them. We then urged you to call and email your Representative and insist that he/she vote in favor of those amendments when they came up for a vote.

And call you did. We received copies of emails from dozens of Representatives who told you that they were going to vote in favor of your gun rights.

We also received copies of emails from legislators who are hostile to your rights who stubbornly declared that they would vote against your rights.

Everyone at the Capitol was nervous about this, especially the anti-gunners who didn’t want to be on record opposing your gun rights.

For some time, we were hearing rumors that the House leadership team wasn’t going to allow any pro-gun amendments onto the Standings Bill.

Insiders were reporting that in an attempt to kill our gun bills, Speaker Paulsen and Majority Leader Upmeyer were going to kill EVERY amendment by running a “strike- after” amendment on the entire Standings Bill.

We know this is can be tedious, but you need to follow this in order to understand what just happened to your gun rights.

To bypass our amendments, Paulsen and Upmeyer ran an amendment to the Standings Bill to gut the entire bill and replace it with another, thereby killing all of those amendments in the process.

We were aware of this possibility, as was Rep. Shaw, and we were ready for them. The moment the “strike-after” amendment was filed, Rep. Shaw re-filed our two gun bills to the amended version of the Standings Bill.

Now understand, the decision to bypass all the amendments is shocking – the majority party virtually ALWAYS allows for debate at the end of the session on the Standings Bill. So already they were going to extreme lengths to bury your gun rights.

But then they did it again. They re-re-filed the Standings Bill in a desperate attempt to stop us.

After Rep. Shaw re-filed the amendments, it became obvious to all that we were not playing games, and were determined to get a vote on these pro-gun bills.

So, in a desperate ploy to ensure that there were no gun bills voted on, Speaker Paulsen and Leader Upmeyer quietly filed ANOTHER “strike-after” amendment while holding the Republicans in a caucus room – not telling their rank and file legislators what they were doing.

Then, the moment the second “strike-after” was filed, they reconvened almost immediately, denying Rep. Shaw the time it would take to re-re-file the amendments.

We couldn’t believe it.

We’ve heard of amendments being physically locked in drawers so they can’t be filed, we’ve heard of all manner of threats and intimidation being used to keep legislators from filing amendments in the first place, but to see not one but two “strike-after” amendments filed was simply outrageous.

As a result, no vote was cast on Constitutional Carry legislation or the legislation to remove the age limit on when parents can teach their children to shoot a handgun.

Already, legislators who are known to be anti-gun are reassuring their voters who are members of IGO, of how pro-gun they are – knowing that there was no vote to prove them liars.

Many of you want names; you want to know who is good and who is bad when it comes to the 2nd Amendment. We are going to have to rely on candidate surveys for that – which we’ll be discussing more in the future.

In the meantime, realize that the entire Republican leadership team in the House worked in concert to kill any chance of these bills coming up.

In a similar way, Senate Democratic leadership voted to kill the suppressor bill last night also – but at least they brought it up for a vote so you and I know where they stand!

These leadership team members are the ones to hold accountable in the House – as well as all no votes in the Senate.

Of course, this email would not be complete in painting the picture without a special mention of the action taken last night by newly minted Speaker Pro-Tem Matt Windschitl.

Windschitl, a Republican leader from Western Iowa, has long painted himself as the hero to the 2nd Amendment in Iowa. His family owns a gun store and he has sponsored many pro-gun bills over the years in the legislature.

Yet one thing is constantly lacking – a willingness to actually do the hard work of advancing the controversial bills. Sure the bills that are relatively straight forward he’ll act on, but anything that’s tough, he’ll run from.

For years insiders have reported that Rep. Windschitl simply files bills to get the grassroots credit for filing them, intending all along to do little with them. Lobbyists, legislators, and voters in his own district have long suspected this.

Last night erased any debate.

Matt Windschitl, long seeking to move up in his career in the Iowa House, was elected to be the Speaker Pro-Tem of the House. Understand how this works.

That is an elected position, and the 100 members of the House are the voters. To get those votes, you can’t rock the boat. Ever. You must do the will of the leadership no matter what.

For Rep. Windschitl last night, that meant that one of the very first things he did as the Speaker Pro-Tem, was to sit in the Speaker’s chair and rule Constitutional Carry out of order!

What’s more, with IGO member Nathan Gibson and his daughters looking on (the ones who were being taught to shoot by their father, and forced to leave the range they shoot on since they are not 14) Windschitl went on to kill the bill that would fix the age limit issue too!

This is what the “pro-gun champion” in Des Moines did last night to secure his role as the Speaker Pro-Tem. As one IGO member said on the phone with us this morning, “This is what he did to get his 30 pieces of silver.”

We’ll have a more complete session wrap-up email coming out before long. This fight has just begun.

IGO is aggressively surveying and meeting with candidates state wide, our PAC is preparing to get involved in House primaries which take place next month, and we’re readying our election program for the Fall where we’ll be exposing anti-gunners in their districts through direct mail, internet advertising, email blasts, and more so that gun owners in Iowa can be informed as they head to the polls.

Frankly, if you’re mad at the events of last night, help us.

IGO is working on our program to hold these politicians accountable in the House and Senate. If there is no price to be paid for bad political behavior, this will continue.

Thank you for your activism this year – we did not lose any of our gun rights – and we’re going to hold them accountable come election time for those that tried to tamper with them.



For Freedom,


Aaron Dorr
Executive Director


P.S. Last night we witnessed a massive betrayal in the Republican controlled House, and they repeatedly altered the final bill of the year in an effort to strip out IGO’s pro-gun amendments.

The Speaker of the House Kraig Paulsen, Majority Leader Linda Upmeyer, and newly minted Speaker Pro-Tem Matt Windschitl are now willing to do whatever it takes to keep gun owners from knowing who is pro-gun and who is not – all in an effort to maintain their majority status.

Many thanks are in order to pro-gun champ Tom Shaw (R-Laurens), who fought valiantly against his own party when needed, in an effort to protect and defend our gun rights here in Iowa.

Now as IGO looks ahead to the primary elections, surveying all the candidates here in Iowa, and ramping up for a massive round of educational mail, email, radio ads, and internet advertising to inform Iowans on where the candidate stand come election time – we can certainly use your help.

Iowa Gun Owners

“I can’t believe how quickly the members of Iowa Gun Owners stepped in and helped us with this local problem. Tell them that gun owners in George extend a huge ‘Thank you’ to them and a bunch of us will be joining IGO immediately!”

This was the call that I got this morning from multiple residents of the city of George, IA, who were mobilized yesterday en masse with the help of Iowa Gun Owners as the George City Council was poised to vote, today, on a proposal to ban all defensive weapons on city property.

But unlike some of city bans that we’ve seen, this small town in NW IA has a true “Boss Hogg” mentality as the language had a carve-out for elected officials like the very City Council members who would be voting to end your ability to defend your family!

That’s right, “elected officials” would still be allowed to carry at the town hall, town pool, town baseball complex, etc.

But the taxpayers who pay to build and maintain these city properties would have to hope that a deputy could make it to town in time to save them should a violent criminal attack them.

Read this story at iowagunowners.org ...

Tom Hoefling

December 31, 2013

Recently, we got the news that Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire former mayor of New York City, has set up a new political action committee in our state, in preparation for the 2014 and 2016 elections, for the purpose of advancing his anti-Right to Keep and Bear Arms agenda. I know I speak for many Iowans when I say to him, simply, “Go back to New York.”

In Iowa, we generally go out and shoot WITH our neighbors, not AT them. That’s because we understand the value of innocent human life, and that guns are nothing more than the physical tools, the implements, we need for defending ourselves, our families, our property, and, ultimately, our liberties and rights.

Gun violence, and violence overall, is nothing more than a symptom of the moral breakdown of a people and a society. It has little to do with which physical objects are available to commit those criminal acts. Take away the guns and an immoral, violent people will bash each others’ brains in with a rock.

No matter how much Mr. Bloomberg brags in the press about how safe it is in New York City, as compared to other big cities in America, our murder rate in Iowa is miniscule compared to his hometown, or Chicago, or Detroit, or Washington, DC, the places with the most draconian, unconstitutional, restrictions on the people’s gun rights.  Most of our Iowa counties go decades without a single incidence of firearms-related murder, despite the fact that we are quite well-armed here, thank you very much. On a merely pragmatic level, why in the world would we listen to him?

More importantly and to the point, our Iowa Constitution asserts quite explicitly, right out of the gate, in Section One of our Bill of Rights, that:

Our most sacred and important rights are not open to negotiation or compromise, because the word INALIENABLE  means something:

Our state motto remains:

There are still large numbers of us who mean that. Any Iowa political figure that is foolish enough to find common cause with Bloomberg will almost certainly suffer a crushing political defeat, no matter how much money he expends on their behalf. And every prospective 2016 presidential candidate who comes courting in the months and years ahead will find that their political fortunes are completely dependent on whether they side with him in this matter, or with We the People of Iowa and our natural, God-given, inalienable rights.

I’ll close with the wise words of one of the most distinguished New Yorkers in history, who understood exactly what the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is, in fact, all about:

Tom Hoefling is a Republican candidate for Iowa governor in 2014. You can check him out at http://www.tomhoefling.com.

If you agree with Tom Hoefling, and are committed to the preservation of our most important liberties and rights, please join the Iowa Leadership and Accountability Project today! We need you! http://www.tomhoefling.com/join-ilap.html

“Among the natural rights of the Colonists are these: First, a right to life; Secondly, to liberty; Thirdly, to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can. These are evident branches of, rather than deductions from, the duty of self-preservation, commonly called the first law of nature. … it is the greatest absurdity to suppose it in the power of one, or any number of men, at entering into society, to renounce their essential natural rights, or the means of preserving those rights; when the grand end of civil government, from the very nature of its institution, is for the support, protection, and defense of those very rights; the principal of which, as is before observed, are Life, Liberty, and Property. If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.”

– Samuel Adams, The Rights of the Colonists, The Report of the Committee of Correspondence to the Boston Town Meeting, Nov. 20, 1772

Tom Hoefling

For more than forty years, the Left in this country, along with their enablers in law and politics, in both "major" parties, have been doing real violence to the most helpless and defenseless among us, the children in the womb, dealing out physical death and dismemberment to more than fifty million innocent, spotless souls. They have as far as those little ones and their bloodlines are concerned destroyed the foundational American principles of equality before the law and due process. They have made a mockery of every stated purpose of the U.S. Constitution, especially its ultimate stated purpose, which is to 'secure the Blessings of Liberty to our Posterity.'

They have also made deep incursions into the the God-given, unalienable rights of the rest of us.

They have worked overtime to try to destroy the foundational God-given institution of our civilization, which is the natural family.

Wherever possible, they have trampled on the most basic intrinsic natural right of all, the right and duty of the people to defend themselves, their families, their communities, and their nation.

If the Left had had its way in recent decades the American people would already be completely disarmed and helpless. Who can doubt this?

But so far they have not had their way. We are not disarmed. We are not helpless, like the innocent children of the Left who have died in the name of "choice."

There are at least one hundred million of us with ready access to the basic tools needed to protect and preserve ourselves, our liberty, and our posterity, should that become necessary.

And we do not lack the will to protect our own.

Everyone would do well to remember this.

MinutemanRKBA.com

Tom Hoefling

For four hundred years in this country, my family has had a well-earned reputation for being well-armed, and of not being afraid to use those arms if life, liberty, property, or their communities were threatened. 

I'm a descendent of Alice Proctor, the wife of Virginia ancient planter John Proctor. In the Indian attacks and massacres of 1622 in which as many as a third of the Virginians were killed, John was in England, and she and her household held off the savages for a month. The British officers threatened to burn down the Proctor Plantation if she didn't remove herself from the frontier back to Pace's Paines, which she then had to do, but the Indians knew better than to ever come anywhere close to her or her family again. 

A few generations later, at the start of the Revolution, five Proctor brothers, including my forebear Little Page Proctor, were part of the Virginia militia that secured the NW wilderness against the British-allied tribes. They were among the forty men with Daniel Boone who held off more than 400 Indians for ten days at Boonesborough, in what became Kentucky. 

They knew that when it came down to it they had to depend on themselves and their neighbors, not on some far-off government. 

Anyone who thinks it is fundamentally any different now is fooling themselves. 

We will NOT disarm. Our natural rights, the right of self-defense being foremost, were given to us by God Himself, and Barack Obama and Dianne Feinstein are NOT welcome to them. 

“Among the natural rights of the Colonists are these: First, a right to life; Secondly, to liberty; Thirdly, to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can." 

- Samuel Adams 

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men..." 

- The Declaration of Independence

The Second Amendment IS pro-life.

"Among the natural rights of the Colonists are these: First, a right to life; Secondly, to liberty; Thirdly, to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can. These are evident branches of, rather than deductions from, the duty of self-preservation, commonly called the first law of nature...In short, it is the greatest absurdity to suppose it in the power of one, or any number of men, at the entering into society, to renounce their essential natural rights, or the means of preserving those rights; when the grand end of civil government, from the very nature of its institution, is for the support, protection, and defence of those very rights; the principal of which, as is before observed, are Life, Liberty, and Property. If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave."

-- Samuel Adams, The Rights of the Colonists

Big win for gun-rights groups: Federal appeals court tosses state ban on carrying concealed weapons 

Chicago Sun-Times

SPRINGFIELD-In a huge win for gun-rights groups, a federal appeals court in Chicago Tuesday tossed the state's ban on carrying concealed weapons and gave Illinois' Legislature 180 days to craft a law legalizing concealed carry.

"The debate is over. We won. And there will be a statewide carry law in 2013," said Todd Vandermyde, a lobbyist for the National Rifle Association.

In a split opinion (see below), the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court ruling in two cases downstate that upheld the state's longstanding prohibition against carrying concealed weapons.

Illinois is the only state with an outright prohibition on concealed carry.

Read more at Illinois Sun-Times ... 

FreeRepublic.com 

NBC Transcript 

Xzins  

...The latest possible trial balloon came this past Monday in an interview with Larry Kudlow. In that discussion, Romney relates the situation in Aurora, Colorado to his time in Massachusetts when he was able to ban weapons such as the AR15, one of America's favorite sporting rifles. 

Romney...the law that we signed in Massachusetts was a combination of efforts both on the part of those that were for additional gun rights and those that opposed gun rights,...Where there are opportunities for people of reasonable minds to come together and find common ground, that’s the kind of legislation I like.(http://www.nbcuniversal.presscentre.com/content/detail.aspx?ReleaseID=11599&NewsAreaId=2)

Romney has given us other trial balloons in recent months. 

First, he consistently affirms RomneyCare, the massive government intrusion into healthcare that was the blueprint for Obama's massive government intrusion into healthcare. Sadly, Romney's health care plan included many items absolutely unacceptable to social conservatives. His continuing support for his program has many conservatives legitimately wondering if he intends merely to "fix" ObamaCare. Perhaps he thinks it would be better if just a little more in his own image. 

Next, and only this past April, was Mitt Romney's support for gay couples. Compounding that problem was his assertion that gay couples should be allowed to adopt children. There are compounding problems with that, too. Mitt Romney has long had a special relationship with the gay-agenda wing of both parties. He has in the past given those advocates special assurances that he is the man they want in office. Just this past week, when Obama permitted military uniforms to be worn in a gay pride parade, there was no protest from Mitt Romney that this author can find. (Since pro-life chaplains can't march in pro-life parades in uniform, one wonders at the double standard.) To cap this off, during the debates, Romney indicated he was just fine with permitting open homosexuality in our military. 

Now we have the governor who instituted strict gun control on "offensive weapons" reaffirming that decision. But that is not the critical part of the message. 

Mitt Romney actually said on Monday -- this past Monday -- that when he can get legislators to agree on gun control, then "that's the kind of legislation I like."! 

I can't help but dissect "that's the kind of legislation I like." What does that mean? Does it mean he's all in favor of signing gun control legislation if he can get legislators to originate it? That way, of course, he wouldn't be the only one taking the heat. 

Does that mean that he doesn't really have a core value opposing gun control, that he'll sign on if he's not the only one with his neck on the line? 

Trial Balloon or undisciplined comment? 

You be the judge. But, you also better be careful, and make sure Romney never has a large enough group of RINOs to team with democrats to bring him gun control legislation. 

After all, "That's the kind of legislation I like."

-----

A reminder about who it is we're dealing with:

Romney signs off on permanent assault weapons ban 

"Deadly assault weapons have no place in Massachusetts," Romney said, at a bill signing ceremony on July 1..."These guns are not made for recreation or self-defense. They are instruments of destruction with the sole purpose of hunting down and killing people."

moran.senate.gov

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Jerry Moran (R-KS) today led 50 senators in expressing grave concern about the dangers posed to Americans’ Second Amendment rights by the United Nations’ Arms Trade Treaty. The 51 senators notified [Alleged] President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton of their intent to oppose ratification of an Arms Trade Treaty that in any way restricts the rights of law-abiding American gun owners. The opposition is strong enough to block the treaty from Senate passage, as treaties submitted to the U.S. Senate require approval of two-thirds of Senators present to be ratified.

In the letter, the senators wrote: “As the treaty process continues, we strongly encourage your administration not only to uphold our country’s constitutional protections of civilian firearms ownership, but to ensure – if necessary, by breaking consensus at the July conference – that the treaty will explicitly recognize the legitimacy of lawful activities associated with firearms, including but not limited to the right of self-defense. As members of the United States Senate, we will oppose the ratification of any Arms Trade Treaty that falls short of this standard.”

“Our country’s sovereignty and the rights of American citizens must not be infringed upon by the United Nations,” Sen. Moran said. “Today, the Senate sends a powerful message to the Obama Administration: an Arms Trade Treaty that does not protect ownership of civilian firearms will fail in the Senate. Our firearm freedoms are not negotiable.”

“The NRA, our four million members and the tens of millions of law-abiding Americans who own firearms will never surrender our right to keep and bear arms to the United Nations,” said Chris Cox, executive director of NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action. “That is why the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty has been met with the full opposition of the NRA. We are grateful for the efforts of these senators, led by Senator Jerry Moran, to oppose this encroachment of international tyranny.”

The U.N. conference on the Arms Trade Treaty is taking place this week in New York City. In October of 2009 at the U.N. General Assembly, the Obama Administration reversed the positions of the two previous Administrations and voted for the U.S. to participate in negotiating the Arms Trade Treaty, purportedly to establish “common international standards for the import, export, and transfer of conventional arms.” However, by threatening to include civilian firearms within its scope, the Arms Trade Treaty could restrict the lawful private ownership of firearms in the United States.

The letter was signed by U.S. Senators Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), Max Baucus (D-MT), John Barrasso (R-WY), Mark Begich (D-AK), Roy Blunt (R-MO), John Boozman (R-AR), Richard Burr (R-NC), Bob Casey (D-PA), Dan Coats (R-IN), Tom Coburn (R-OK), Thad Cochran (R-MS), Susan Collins (R-ME), Bob Corker (R-TN), John Cornyn (R-TX), Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Jim DeMint (R-SC), Mike Enzi (R-WY), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Dean Heller (R-NV), John Hoeven (R-ND), Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), James Inhofe (R-OK), Johnny Isakson (R-GA), Mike Johanns (R-NE), Ron Johnson (R-WI), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Mike Lee (R-UT), Joe Manchin (D-WV), Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Jerry Moran (R-KS), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Ben Nelson (D-NE), Rand Paul (R-KY), Rob Portman (R-OH), Mark Pryor (D-AR), Jim Risch (R-ID), Pat Roberts (R-KS), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Richard Shelby (R-AL), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Jon Tester (D-MT), John Thune (R-SD), Pat Toomey (R-PA), David Vitter (R-LA), Jim Webb (D-VA), and Roger Wicker (R-MS).

The full text of the signed letter is below and the PDF version can be found here.

###

"[W]hen the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, - who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually, by totally disusing and neglecting the militia."

-- George Mason, speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 1788

"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms ... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."

-- Cesare Beccaria, On Crimes and Punishment, quoted by Thomas Jefferson in Commonplace Book

“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.”

-- Benjamin Franklin