Weeks before Shall Issue anniversary, Johnson County sheriff posts weapons permit ‘rant’

IOWA CITY — Three weeks before the five-year anniversary of Iowa's Shall Issue law going into effect, Johnson County Sheriff Lonny Pulkrabek has posted a self-professed Facebook rant about gun laws.

Pulkrabek — an opponent of the Shall Issue measure, which removed the Iowa sheriffs' discretion in issuing weapons permits — said the timing of his post has nothing to do with the law's anniversary. The post included a photo of the application — the name is not visible — and handwritten notes of the applicant's criminal history.

'It just drew my ire,' Pulkrabek said Thursday morning, about two hours after making the post to Facebook. 'It's a classic example of someone who is not a law-abiding citizen having a permit to acquire a weapon. Someone who doesn't obey our laws doesn't deserve that right, in my opinion.'

Pulkrabek said the application was a for permit to acquire. Handwritten notes reference convictions dating back to 1997 for theft, drug, harassment, intoxication and multiple offenses for driving while barred. Under the Shall Issue law, sheriffs can deny weapons permits for people convicted of felonies, domestic violence offenses or if they have demonstrated an addiction to alcohol.

The measure, which applied to permits to acquire and carry, was approved in 2010 by then-Gov. Chet Culver. Proponents heralded the law for standardizing the weapons permit process across all of Iowa's 99 counties, while opponents raised concerns it took discretion away from sheriffs.

Pulkrabek said he would have denied the permit, but under the current law, he feels he has to approve the permit application. Since Shall Issue went into effect, Pulkrabek has tracked people with criminal histories who have obtained weapons permits in Johnson County. From Jan. 1, 2011 through November 2015, there have been 1,043 such people who have obtained permits, though Pulkrabek said he couldn't say if he would have denied each of those applications.

'Some of them may have had offenses that happened in the 1970s or 1980s,' he said. 'They have a criminal record, but I may have accepted it simply because it was a long time ago.'

Asked if that discretion is what the Shall Issue law was enacted to address, Pulkrabek conceded there was not consistency in the application process across Iowa. However, he believes a common-sense solution would be to provide guidelines on when a permit cannot be issued, such as when an applicant has a conviction for an aggravated misdemeanor in the last five years or two serious misdemeanors over that time frame.

'If someone has been convicted of three serious misdemeanors in the previous five years, are they a law-abiding citizen? I would say no,' he said.

Pulkrabek said he is not 'anti-gun' and supports the Second Amendment, but thinks gun laws need to 'evolve.'