Jan 13, 2011

Iowa top cop: Law, schmaw

It's no longer news that Iowa has has just become a shall-issue CCW state. A little less known is a Dec. 29 letter from Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, D, telling local officials they have authority to forbid firearms on local public property.  Two things stand out.

(1) --  Miller's letter shunts aside  a broad state pre-emption statute and advises local officials to get around it by using criminal trespass laws to prosecute a CCW holder paying his property tax over at the court house. That, in turn, conflicts with another law exempting  public property from criminal trespass laws.

(2) -- The Miller letter cites a single legal precedent for his opinion, a similar 2003 letter written by Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller.

Down in Sioux City (Woodbury County), they're not quite buying it yet.  Yesterday the supervisors defeated a motion to ban CCW holders from carrying on public property. The news could be better. The vote was 3-2 against the ban, but at least one of the supers said he might change his mind if someone could offer a better means of enforcement. That's a coded message meaning country taxpayers should fork over a little more for metal detectors at court house doors.

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