The Hawkeye State may limit the gun rights of people who have been involuntarily committed over mental health concerns, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled on Friday.
In a divided 4-3 decision, the state’s highest court upheld a lower court decision against a man who was denied a concealed carry permit because he was involuntarily committed as a teenager. It ruled that the state’s gun rights restoration process does not violate the state’s recently adopted constitutional arms protection.
“The State has a compelling interest in preventing gun violence and suicide,” Justice Thomas Waterman wrote for the majority. “Section 724.31 is narrowly tailored to serve that interest by keeping firearms from dangerous persons while allowing restoration of firearm rights upon a petitioner’s showing they are no longer a threat to public safety. We decline to shift the burden of proof under section 724.31 from the petitioner to the State.”
The decision marks the first major test of Iowa’s voter-approved measure enshrining an individual right to keep and bear arms in the state constitution. Though gun-rights advocates designed it to be a bulwark against most gun restrictions, Friday’s ruling underscores the extent to which courts can continue to uphold certain gun laws.
The voters of Iowa approved Amendment 1 by more than 30 points in 2022. In addition to making the state the 45th to adopt a constitutional arms guarantee, it also requires courts to hold restrictions on that right to the highest legal standard, strict scrutiny.
To clear strict scrutiny, a government action that burdens a constitutional right must be “narrowly tailored” toward advancing a “compelling governmental interest.” Strict scrutiny was widely sought after by gun-rights advocates dissatisfied with the widespread use of the more permissive intermediate scrutiny standard by judges before the Supreme Court did away with tiers of scrutiny in federal gun cases altogether in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.
The Amendment 1 test case centers around an Iowa man, identified in the opinion as “N.S.,” who was involuntarily committed in 2006 when he was sixteen years old. His family members at the time alleged that he had made threats to harm himself and others and was abusing drugs and alcohol. He was subsequently evaluated and diagnosed with bipolar disorder and several other behavioral and mental health conditions.
Under federal law, that commitment rendered N.S. permanently ineligible to purchase or possess a firearm. He attempted to apply for an Iowa concealed carry permit in 2022 but was denied, and later petitioned the courts to have his gun rights restored. The district court rejected that petition after it determined N.S. lied about having a history of mental health and substance abuse issues during a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation as part of the proceeding. He appealed that denial to the Iowa Supreme Court.
In evaluating that appeal, Justice Waterman acknowledged the novel divergence between Iowa’s Constitution and how the Supreme Court has shifted the legal treatment of the US Constitution’s Second Amendment.
“Second Amendment precedent provides only limited guidance for our strict-scrutiny review of Amendment 1A challenges because federal courts have moved away from intermediate or strict scrutiny in favor of the ‘text, history, and tradition’ test,” Waterman wrote. “Nevertheless, federal decisions applying heightened scrutiny to firearm restrictions before Bruen provide persuasive authority for adjudicating strict-scrutiny challenges to firearm regulations challenged under Amendment 1A.”
Waterman noted that pre-Bruen, most federal courts reviewing the federal prohibition on firearm possession after a mental health commitment have recognized a “compelling” government interest in preventing self-harm and harm to others.
“The fighting issue is whether section 724.31 is narrowly tailored to serve that interest,” he said.
He wrote that some federal courts previously allowed challenges to the lifetime federal ban to advance only in states without rights restoration mechanisms and otherwise unanimously rejected them. He argued that the same analysis is appropriate because Iowa provides such an avenue.
“Section 724.31 provides a procedure for restoration of firearm rights upon the petitioner’s showing that he ‘will not be likely to act in a manner dangerous to public safety,'” Waterman wrote. “The firearm prohibition remains in place only for those petitioners who fail to make that showing. The prohibition is not permanent; petitioners can reapply every two years. We hold that section 724.31 is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest in preventing gun violence and suicides.”
Justice Matthew McDermott disagreed with the court’s conclusion in a dissenting opinion joined by two other justices. He argued that Iowa’s restoration statute fails strict scrutiny because it requires petitioners to persuade the court they are no longer dangerous, rather than asking the state to prove they still are to continue denying them their rights.
“The very point of strict scrutiny is to place the burden of justification on the party that favors the restriction,” he wrote. “That being the case, it is simply incongruous and wrong to force the party under the restraint to prove that the restraint no longer belongs rather than the other way around. Again, strict scrutiny requires that the state narrowly tailor its limitation on constitutional rights in the service of its compelling state interest.”
