The Iowa State Daily’s Editorial Board has again failed to do its due diligence before using its platform to argue. In yesterday’s “Swift Political Action Necessary, Critical,” the Board makes three fatal errors that destroy any credibility they may have had when arguing on their chosen topic of legislative action against Second Amendment rights.

The first fatal error is the Board’s rhetorical question “… so why is it that no action has been taken to enforce stricter gun laws?” Action has been taken and at each action, we have surrendered our rights to our government. Our Second Amendment rights guarantee the protection of all other rights, yet legislation comes around every few years looking to limit or eliminate that right.

Let’s start with the National Firearms Act of 1934 — a law originally meant to combat the government-created crime surge that came with the prohibition of alcohol. This act limited a citizen’s ability to purchase: machine guns, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, suppressors, and ‘destructive devices.’ At the time, the limitation came in the form of a $200 ( about $4,000 today) tax on these items. It was a de facto ban for the poor to own firearms that still exists today and comes with a approximately 9-month application process.

Next in the long line of gun-control legislation is the Gun Control Act of 1968. The progenitor of the background check, the GCA of 1968 prohibited the following people from owning firearms: a person under indictment, a fugitive from justice, an addict or user of any controlled substance (marijuana counts), committee of a mental institution, an illegal alien, a dishonorable discharge from the armed services, a person who renounced their U.S. citizenship, someone with a restraining order against them, or someone convicted of domestic violence. Additionally, the GCA of 1968 established a system whereby arms could not be transferred across state lines unless by a Federal Firearm Licensee that results in a $20-30 fee for any citizen looking to purchase from another state.

In a state of little contention is that the GCA was targeted toward Black Americans who were mobilizing for their rights and being firebombed and beaten for it. Often omitted from the history books are Martin Luther King’s neighbors standing guard over his house with firearms after King himself was denied permit by a system who wanted him dead. Others like the Black Panther Party exercised their Second Amendment rights by routinely open carrying firearms to ensure the that they could walk home without being harassed, beaten, or killed.

The next erosion comes from the National Firearms Act of 1986. The act prohibited new automatic firearms from entering the market but those already in existence could be transferred. However, the person would need to meet a laundry list of requirements to receive it. Really, it just isn’t worth the wait, the cost, or the hassle for the average citizen. Also, if you’re poor, you may as well forget about exercising this part of the Second Amendment because you’ll never be able to afford the thousands of dollars needed to purchase this rarity.

Our last stop is the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act. The bill would expand on the GCA and require background checks be run on a national database that ensured a purchaser was not a “prohibited person”.

This is just a survey of what has been done to erode Second Amendment rights in the United States on the federal level. On the state level, some have willfully burned the Constitution via magazine bans, age requirements, transport bans, storage regulations, and “gun-free zones” that create a de facto bans for all citizens in the state or city.

So, I hope this does something in the way of educating the Board on what the reality is for law-abiding citizens looking to exercise their rights. Their needing to cite the New York Times on something so simple as how to purchase a firearm suggests they are not owners themselves, have never been through the process, and have not done any serious research on the topic. Three things that might begin to qualify them for espousing an opinion for thousands to see.

The second fatal error that the Board makes is their claim that “not much was done to achieve genuine and effective change [in response to the Las Vegas shooting.]”Well change was achieved, and rather swiftly by U.S. Government standards. That change was achieved through the BATF unilaterally superseding Congress’s authority through a rewriting of the law to reclassify bump stocks as machineguns. So, we’ve had our change, but at what cost to our republic and its laws?

The Board’s final error is again call for a certain swiftness to political action. Political action ought to be slow, deliberate, and meaningful. We decry Congresswomen and men when they act on impulse.

Why does the Board praise for Ardern who allows terrorists to dictate laws that now deprive law-abiding New Zealanders of their ability to hunt or protect themselves? For good reason, America does not negotiate with terrorists. It seems that New Zealand does not negotiate either. No. They outright surrender to them.

Further, Ardern’s government is now sending people to prison for up for 14 years for having a copy of the terrorist’s manifesto or video. I am left wondering why any member of the press would ever praise a leader whose policy and action include such blatant censorship.

New Zealand acted on impulse, and will suffer for it one way or another. We can see this lesson in the U.S. evidenced by the passing of the liberty-destroying PATRIOT Act, war over “WMDs”, and the routine passing of 1000-page bills without a read. In each instance, swift political action was taken but later regretted. Now, the Board calls upon our government to take away our citizenry’s civil right and our guarantor of liberty—the Second Amendment? It is absurd to suppose our country should, in any way, be governed by an island. That is what the Board calls for, despite it being against all common sense.