Blind gun permit, An Iowa law allowing the legally or completely blind to acquire permits
to carry guns in public has stirred up debate as to whether or not the
visually impaired should have "full access" to firearms.
"Up until 2011, it was solely up to the sheriff of your county who
decided who got a gun permit and who did not," Cedar County Sheriff
Warren Wethington, who has been granting gun permits to the visually
impaired since he became sheriff in 2007, told ABCNews.com. "So you were
basically at the mercy of whether you had a pro-gun sheriff or an
anti-gun sheriff."
In 2010, Iowa became a "shall-issue" state when the legislature amended a
law to create a uniform procedure for issuing gun permits statewide. As
a result, Iowa residents could get a gun permit so long as they did not
have a criminal background or history of mental illness, Wethington
said.
"Once those restrictions were limited, we basically had to approve
anybody who applied for a permit," said Delaware County Sheriff John
LeClere. "Our opinion no longer matters and our information on an
individual, as far as their character, was something we could no longer
consider."
While applicants need to take a firearm safety course to obtain a
permit, it is available online and does not need to include hands-on
firearms training, which "makes it a little difficult," LeClere said.
"If we have a person who is possibly eyesight impaired, he is certainly
entitled to defend himself," he said. "But should he be carrying [a
firearm] in public? Should there be further restrictions placed on him
based on eyesight?"
"I have some reservations about full access for people who are blind,"
said Patrick Clancy, superintendent of the Iowa Braille and Sight Saving
School in Vinton, Iowa. "That's just because shooting requires a lot of
vision to be accurate outside of controlled settings with safety
courses."
Still, advocates for the blind say the law squares away with the
Americans with Disabilities Act, and that the same restrictions that
apply to sighted people should also apply to the blind when it comes to
guns.
"We don't believe there should be a blanket prohibition on blind people
owning or carrying guns," said Chris Danielsen, spokesman for the
National Federation of the Blind. "It's certainly true that the blind
person or visually impaired person needs to be cautious about using a
firearm, but so does everybody else."
Danielsen said the issue of whether or not to use a gun is primarily an
issue of common sense, not sight. "The important thing for people to
realize is that our judgment is not impaired," he said.
"A visually impaired person, in my opinion, is more entitled for a
permit to carry, just for the sheer fact that they don't pick up on the
cues that a sighted person would have," said Wethington, who has a
daughter who is legally blind.
Wethington said there is no reason why someone who is blind, if properly
trained, can't operate or use a handgun or any weapon just as safely as
any person who isn't visually impaired.
"I have a permit to carry. It doesn't restrict me in times of low
vision. My permit is still good in heavy fog, it's good in low light,
it's good anytime that my vision is obstructed," he said. "If I'm in a
room that is low light or total darkness, my permit is still valid, even
if I can't see better than a totally blind person."
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Judul: Blind gun permit, Controversial Iowa Law
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