According to a story in Saturday’s Des Moines Register, the 99 Iowa county sheriffs will make it more difficult to grant concealed weapons permits to citizens.

Concealed weapons permits are granted to legal Iowa residents if they pass a background check and after they have demonstrated sufficient need to carry a concealed weapon. The new provisions will also prohibit all from carrying handguns if they are illegal aliens, former patients of federal mental hospitals, and if they were dishonorably discharged from the military or have ever renounced their U.S. citizenship.

The limitations placed on these concealed weapons permits is a good idea, and with advances in information technology, it will be increasingly easier for law enforcement officials to determine who should and shouldn’t be carrying firearms.

However, the state of Iowa issued only 21,988 permits in 1996 (Iowa Department of Public Safety). Some counties, like Jefferson County in the southeastern part of the state, issued zero.

The problem with Iowa’s concealed weapons law is that the local sheriffs can deny otherwise qualified applicants on the basis that their reasoning for carrying a weapon isn’t good enough.

Why should people be able to carry concealed weapons? Law abiding citizens need to be able to defend themselves in an increasingly dangerous world. Not knowing who would and wouldn’t be packing heat might give potential criminals a moment of pause, and may even deter some crimes.

There are many, though, who say loosening concealed carry laws would cause Iowa gun deaths to skyrocket. However, in the state of Texas, where a concealed carry law has been on the books for a year, the gun death rate did not increase.

This is probably due in part to not only the extensive background checks that applicants must pass, but also a 10 to 15 hour weapons education and safety class taught by either a Texas state trooper or another state certified instructor.

Last year almost 80 percent of those who applied for these permits in Texas were denied for some extenuating reason (Texas Department of Public Safety), so it can’t be said that it’s easy to obtain one of these permits.

Who are the people most likely to benefit from a change in Iowa’s law? The law abiding citizens will, of course. Criminals obviously do not care if they qualify for a permit or not, since they will carry guns with them anyway. Giving citizens the right to carry firearms will not be a cure-all for violent crime, but it will help take away the huge advantage that criminals have.

There is some strong evidence to support my argument. According to a study by Dr. Edgar Suter in the Journal of the Medical Association of Georgia, the average murder rate for states that allow qualified citizens to carry concealed weapons was lower than for states like Iowa that have more restrictive rules. In the 22 states that allow concealed weapons, the average murder rate was 6.4 per 10,000. The average murder rate in those states that either restrict or don’t allow concealed weapons was 10.5 per 10,000. You can’t draw a definite conclusion from a single study, but it does give credence to those who want the right to bear arms in public.

Is it right to place certain restrictions on the purchase of firearms? Of course. We obviously don’t want to legally sanction allowing criminals and the mentally unstable to own guns. However, we need to be suspicious against a law like the one in Iowa that is based on the arbitrary decision of one person. Such a law is unduly restrictive.

The problem with unduly restrictive gun laws is that the only people that obey them are the law abiding citizens (obviously). An example of such an unduly restrictive law was the 1994 ban on so-called assault weapons.

The only people that this law affected were the collectors who enjoyed owning and collecting powerful firearms. Do you think criminals possibly cared that the government banned a weapon they use to kill and maim people?

Gun control laws do not work. They discriminate against those who obey the law and provide those who mock the laws of society with a huge advantage.

There are some groups like Handgun Control, Inc. who want a complete moratorium on handgun sales. These dangerous ideas not only threaten individuals who want to protect themselves but also tread on constitutionally sacred ground.

We should promote the Second Amendment as strongly as we promote the other provisions of the Bill of Rights. The Founding Fathers were just as adamant about the right to keep and bear arms as they were about the right to free speech or the right to practice your own religion. I hope our lawmakers remember that and advocate less restrictive gun laws.

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Robert Zeis is a senior in finance from Des Moines.