As of Jan. 1, people with permits can carry visible guns in public, Van Otterloo said. (Plymouth County Sheriff Mike Van Otterloo)
The bill Governor Chet Culver signed into law in April made Iowa a "shall issue" state, meaning county sheriffs would lose some of their discretion to deny a weapons permit.
Another change: there will be no specific restrictions included on a person's weapons permit.
Before this, he explained, sheriffs could place restrictions on when a person could carry a gun, even with a permit. For example, some people would want a permit just to carry a gun when they are transporting a large sum of money. The old permit law also allowed the sheriff to restrict permit holders from carrying weapons into bars.
"It said it right on all the permits -- it was not valid when you were in an establishment that sold alcohol," Van Otterloo said. "The new law changes that. There are no restrictions. You can carry it wherever you want, however you want, whenever you want."
However, the rule does ban permit holders from carrying a gun if they are under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
In addition to becoming a shall issue state and lessening restrictions on concealment, the law includes the following changes:
• Increase the term of a permit from one year to five years.
• Narrows the disqualifying circumstances for a permit to the federal minimum in most cases, while at the same time further narrowing state-specific disqualifiers.
• Prevents the issuing officer from placing limits on or restricting the scope of a carry permit.
• Ensures that denials, suspensions and revocations of permits would be subject to both administrative and judicial review.
• Grants recognition to all valid out-of-state permits.
• Broadens the types of training that would fulfill the state-mandated training requirement for permit applicants and removes other over-reaching restrictions on gun owners in Iowa.