When the law concerning gun rights went into effect in January, it was already facing scrutiny from local sheriffs, businesses and communities. Now there is a new bill lawmakers are hoping will help in clearing up the major concerns and oversights.

The original bill, Senate File 2379, was passed primarily to create a degree of uniformity across the state, but fault was found in some of the provisions established within the law.

“It’s not uncommon; when we pass a significant piece of legislation, we do a lot of negotiating and a lot of listening to people and adjusting and amending … and in the end it becomes law, and you find out six months later that there are some things you need to go back and fix,” said Sen. Herman Quirmbach, D-Ames.

The new bill attempting to fix these problems, Senate Study Bill 1056 — which is currently in the Judiciary Committee — would change the original bill with several new specifications.

In current law, gun owners are required to attend range training for a permit renewal, but not when applying for a new permit. SSB 1056 would flip this around and require range training only for new permits.

“That’s the only way it makes sense,” said Sen. Robert Hogg, D-Cedar Rapids, and vice chairman of the Judiciary Committee. “It doesn’t make sense to give someone a permit without range training but then say if you want to renew it, you have to have it.”

This bill would also address training issues by prohibiting the use of Internet training to satisfy any training requirements because of the inefficiencies involved with this practice.

An additional provision makes the prohibition of the transportation of a loaded long gun on public highways more clear. This has been law in Iowa for a while and is extremely important in preventing illegal hunting and in the safety of anyone involved in a motor vehicle accident, Hogg said.

Another criticism with the law as it reads now is that it allows people to carry into an establishment serving alcohol.

“In Story County, what I had done is that the permits that I gave that were not law enforcement were invalid in any establishment that served alcohol,” said Story County Sheriff Paul Fitzgerald.

The original intention of SSB 1056 would have changed this by forbidding the carry of weapons into places serving alcohol, but this was changed. Instead, a law enforcement officer can now ask a person to take a breath sample blood-alcohol test if there is reason to believe they are carrying while intoxicated, the same as if someone were driving.

There are two reasons for this change.

“One is a bar owner who doesn’t want people carrying guns onto his or her property can post the bar as ‘no guns allowed,'” Hogg said. “We don’t really need to make this a law; this is something any bar owner can do.”

As for the second reason, people began to make the case that they should not be deprived of their right to carry when they are not intoxicated, whether they are in a bar or not.

Current Iowa law states that a permit is invalid when a person is considered intoxicated, meaning they have a blood alcohol level of 0.08 or above.

The bill would also take away the permit of anyone who commits a criminal trespass twice by carrying a weapon onto any property clearly marked “no weapons.”

“The reason you need to do that is a criminal trespass is only a simple misdemeanor, and a simple misdemeanor doesn’t affect your rights to a gun permit,” Hogg said. “People are posting these ‘no guns’ signs, but there’s no meaningful, real enforcement mechanism for that.”

Other bills within the Senate haven’t fared as well as SSB 1056. Senate File 128, which would have prohibited weapons in state and municipal buildings, didn’t move forward.

“The state has said cities and counties can’t regulate throughout a city or throughout a county, but what they are allowed to do, as owners of property, is just like the bar owners,” said Hogg, who was the chairman of the subcommittee for the bill. “They’re able to control their own property, and so I didn’t think that was necessary to adopt that legislation, because I think cities and counties can already control access of guns onto their property.”

But there is agreement that guns should be controlled on properties such as these.

“I would be very supportive of city councils and county boards if they wanted to post city hall as being a gun-free zone,” Quirmbach said. “Politics gets people excited sometimes, and that’s not a good situation to have firearms around.”

Some have objected to bills like SSB 1056, saying they are an attack on Second Amendment rights and this is just taking a step backward.

“I don’t see this in any way, shape or form as an attack on the Second Amendment,” Hogg said. “I don’t see this as an effort to restrict the right of law-abiding citizens.

“What we’re trying to do is make the permit system more effective and make it enforceable if you’re intoxicated or make it enforceable if you’re trespassing by carrying a gun onto property that’s marked ‘no guns allowed.'”