People line up to get concealed carry permits. Some businesses post no-gun signs.

[spin]

1000′s of Iowa Gun Owners Apply for Carry Permits Under New Laws
Tuesday, January 4th, 2011 at 6:14 PM

Iowa --(Ammoland.com)- January 1st marked the first day Iowa officially became a shall carry state. Under the new law, permits to carry weapons only can be denied if the applicant is a felon or if they have been through some sort of mental health commitment process.

Previously, Iowa sheriffs had the discretion to deny permits if a background check turned up something of concern, such as a history of substance abuse. Applicants also had to meet shooting qualifications.

Now that those restrictions are gone, interest in obtaining permits to carry weapons, which no longer mandate the gun be concealed, has reached an all time high in just one day.

Multiple reports have long lines at every sheriff office in Iowa.

“The only reason people would be shocked is due to the simple fact that our rights have been stomped on for so long, we’ve forgotten what it means to exercise them. But again, that is no different than the battles that took place in every other state that went down this path before Iowa. Furthermore, most law-abiding citizens prefer to carry their weapons concealed, so how would people even be alarmed by seeing a “loaded pistol” when that pistol is properly concealed? Said Des Moines Gun Rights Examiner, Sean McClanahan
http://www.ammoland.com/2011/01/04/1000s-of-iowa-gun-owners-apply-for-carry-permits/

Gun Rights Advocates Protest Businesses
Tuesday, January 4, 2011 10:47 PM EST

Looser laws for gun owners in Iowa took effect in the new year. Some businesses already plan to keep out the gun-toters, but it's causing a second amendment uproar.

Gun owners are stepping up to businesses. If they won't let them carry a firearm in, they'll take their money elsewhere.

Signs reading 'No firearms allowed' are starting to greet customers at the door. The Iowa Firearms Coalition president Sean McClanahan said those signs don't sit well with gun rights advocates.

"Putting signs up doesn't accomplish anything in the way of safety. In fact, it does the opposite because there are no good guys inside carrying," he explained.

Sean McClanahan said to get their message across to businesses with firearms restrictions, they are handing out cards that read 'Armed citizens save lives' and 'Criminals won't obey your no guns sign, I will.'
http://www.woi-tv.com/Global/story.asp?S=13784597

Meanwhile in other news from Colorado:

NOREEN: Concealed-carry permits haven't caused problems
January 05, 2011 7:05 AM

Since 2007, the number of concealed-carry permits in El Paso County has more than doubled, but there has not been a corresponding jump in gun violence by the permit holders.

You can believe whatever you want, but at some point it comes down to results, and nothing suggests that life here has become more dangerous because of concealed-carry permits.

There are 16,772 citizens in El Paso County who have permits to carry a concealed handgun.

In 2010, just six people had their permits revoked, and Sheriff Terry Maketa said not a single permit holder was arrested in any violent case.

***snip***

When El Paso County’s number of concealed-carry permits jumped several years ago, some people (including a certain columnist) worried that increasing the number of guns in cars would lead to more road rage and other violence.

It hasn’t happened.

Maketa said the number of permits — including many more for women — “has been climbing and I tie that to the political climate at the national level.”

A couple of years ago permit holders were surveyed.

“It was surprising how little of the time they have it, and seldom is it on their person,” Maketa said. “It’s not a gun-crazed group.”

The concealed-carry system seems to be working.
http://www.gazette.com/news/permits-110591-concealed-carry.html

[Abq_Sarah]

1. I really don't have a problem

With businesses that don't allow firearms. It's their call to make.

[Hangingon]

2. They have the right to ban arms without a doubt.

Without a doubt, I have the right to patronize these businesses or not.

[lepus]

4. I agree

If they are wanting to make a political statement that is against my beliefs, they can do without my business.

[spin]

3. Nor do I. In time they usually change their mind...

When enough customers call them up and politely explain that they have moved their business to a more gun friendly competitor, the establishment usually pulls the signs down.

[RamboLiberal]

10. I've noticed that businesses tend to overreact

when a state goes to CCW. Here in my home state of PA CCW is not big issue - been around for quite awhile. I rarely see a sign that explcitly says no guns and the rare business that posts it usually ends up pulling it down somewhat quickly.

Only sign I remember seeing "No Weapons" was at a new IHOP in my area (and IHOP itself was new to the area) about 2 years ago, the next time I visited it the sign was gone.

Living near Ohio I remember stories from there the # of businesses posting when they got CCW a few years ago.

My bet is the gun owners & CCW carriers will make their displeasure known quickly and the signs will come down.

Actually IMHO these kind of signs fail to guarantee customer/employee safety and could serve as "rob us" signs.

[Kennah]

7. No shirt, No shoes, No service

This is quite a bit different from "No Jews, No Blacks, No Catholics, No Irish".

[Atypical Liberal]

16. I do.

While I respect private property rights, there is a difference for private property that is intentionally open to the public for business.

Just because it is private property does not mean, for example, that they should be able to deny service to black people, or require them to drink from different water fountains, or use different bathrooms.

If you are randomly out on the town doing some shopping or eating, and happen to stop somewhere where firearms are not allowed, you have three options:

1) go somewhere else
2) keep your concealed carry firearm on your person and keep your mouth shut
3) leave your firearm in your vehicle

#3 is dangerous.

Most people who find themselves in the above quandry will probably just keep their mouths shut, do the business they want to do, and leave.

[Abq_Sarah]

20. Well...

As a business owner, I should get to decide what type of behavior I allow in my business.

This isn't about race, or religion, or politics or sexual orientation. This is about a specific behavior. You may have a 1st amendment right to free speech but if you come in my business and start raising hell or insult myself or other customers, you're going to be removed, by force if necessary, and I am completely within my legal rights to do so.

By the way, I run firearms classes and I am not at all hostile towards the 2nd amendment but I realize my personal right to carry does not require business owners to accommodate me.

[RSillsbee]

23. I should get to decide what type of behavior I allow in my business.

Put up a sign that says "No Robberies allowed " and let us know how that works out for you.

[cleanhippie]

25. What "behavior" are you talking about?

What behavior will a person carrying a concealed handgun exhibit that a non-carry person will not?

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[sharesunited]

6. I'll rush to agree with you before your post is deleted.

[Kennah]

8. Here in Washington ...

... and a few other states, there is no requirement to demonstrate competence.

In Vermont, Alaska, and Arizona no license is required at all. Yet the streets remain remarkably free of blood.

Your assertions don't measure up to reality.

[slackmaster]

12. You really ought to read up on what the law actually says. Your comments demonstrate ignorance.

Any felony conviction, violent misdemeanor, etc. is surely going to come up in a background check, and would disqualify a person from getting a permit (or owning a gun at all).

[ProgressiveProfessor]

13. Your post is false as to fact and is anti civil rights lunacy

[sharesunited]

15. A civil right to have bullets enter our bodies? Um, no thank you.

[X_Digger]

17. The fifth, fourth, and eighth amendment set murderers, rapists, and pedophiles free..

Funny, I don't hear you calling for those to be 're-interpreted'.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

18. More of your anti union agitprop again

[sharesunited]

21. Have you stated your case why labor unions depend on shooting people?

I must have missed it.

Or maybe you are just trying to dress up the depravity of guns in the respectable clothing of a pro labor argument?

[Straw Man]

24. The depravity of guns?

Since guns are inanimate objects and "depravity" is a human character flaw, I guess you are referring to those who wield guns. Would you include the police and the military in your characterization? How about the Deacons for Defense? How about Eleanor Roosevelt? The Bielski Partisans? Or the knuckle-dragging mouth-breathers below?



As for labor, firearms are an industry, one of the few manufacturing sectors in which the USA is still a world leader. So you would gladly put thousands out of work to further your own hysterical agenda? And don't start prating about child porn again; that particular analogy has failed in thread after thread after thread.

[PavePusher]

19. You can cite that one, amirite? n/t

[Straw Man]

22. A civil right?

A civil right to have bullets enter our bodies? Um, no thank you.

You seem to be very fond of that absurd meme. Do you honestly believe that the Second Amendment protects the right to shoot people with impunity?

Society's effort to protect your body against bullets comes via the criminal code, which further protects you against similar intrusion by knives, swords, spears, axes, bats, clubs, pointed sticks... I think you get the picture.

[cleanhippie]

26. Where does that right come from? I certainly have not seen it anywhere but in your posts.

Really, SU, your comments have become stranger and stranger.

[Peter1x9]

9. Businesses that put up 'No firearms allowed' signs

should just go ahead and put up "Please rob us now" signs too. They are just making it easier on the criminals to determine who to rob and who to avoid robbing. lol

[ProgressiveProfessor]

14. Requiring patrons not to be armed does not mean the clerks are not armed

[slackmaster]

11. A person with a legally documented "history of substance abuse" may be ineligible...

...to own a firearm in the first place.

I am no fan of allowing bureaucrats to deny people the exercise of a civil right based on hearsay, innuendo, suspicion, etc.

[jeepnstein]

27. The No Guns signs...

will slowly disappear as the hysteria fades. Once people figure out it's not going to be some kind of weird scene like "The Quick and the Dead" or something it'll fade.

Normal people exercising their Constitutional Rights are rarely a problem for anyone except those people who would prefer we were not Free.

[oneshooter]

28. Been working fine in Texas for 15 years. n/t