House Democrats leave Iowa Capitol in protest of gun bills

**PocketProtector** · February 29th, 2012, 01:26 PM

http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/d...osed-location/

**MWAG** · February 29th, 2012, 02:31 PM

Hopefully they don't come back.

**PA Rifleman** · February 29th, 2012, 04:21 PM

I would have been fired if I left my job. Why not them?

**PocketProtector** · February 29th, 2012, 04:27 PM

Originally Posted by PA Rifleman

I would have been fired if I left my job. Why not them?

They're special. Just ask em

**fragmag** · February 29th, 2012, 06:20 PM

There are some great responses to that article. Thanks for the link.

**FNG19** · February 29th, 2012, 07:18 PM

I did some digging around the Internet to find the Iowa Constitutional Amendment that was the source of all this hassle, and the various amendments to the language of the proposed Iowa Constitutional Amendment. It appears -- and I'm neither a lawyer nor plugged in at all to IA politics on any level -- that the most serious contention is over the clause that requires gun rights to be subject to Strict Scrutiny. The reason this matters is that Strict Scrutiny requires a three-prong test:

1) That there is a compelling government interest in the limitation of a right,

2) That the law is narrowly tailored to achieve the goal at hand, and

3) That the law uses the least restrictive means to achieve that goal.

It should be easy to see why this three-prong test is beneficial for us, and why the anti-gun contingent is dead set against it. Strict Scrutiny means that most of their pet restrictions would probably be tossed out.

You can read the proposed IA Constitutional Amendment here: House Joint Resolution 2009. You can read the three offered amendments to the Amendment text at the bottom of the window that'll come up here: H-8032, H-8034, and H-8061.