Iowa City’s Vote on Gun Club’s Future Actually Good News for Once

Over my time here at Bearing Arms, I’ve written a lot about the interaction of gun clubs and ranges with the community around them. It’s generally not particularly good news.

After all, it’s fashionable to be down on guns, gun owners, and, by extension, gun clubs and ranges.

Of course, that strikes me as a little odd since one of their arguments against us carrying firearms is that we’re not well-trained enough, and in response to that, they make it harder for us to train, but when did logic and gun control ever go together?

Anyway, most of the time, those interactions aren’t great.

Which is why it was so important to talk about what just happened in Marshalltown, Iowa.

The Marshalltown City Council voted unanimously to lower the lease fee for the Central Iowa River Gun Club (CIRGC) on Monday night.

During the regular meeting, Club President Steve Gile said their goal is to provide the safest possible shooting facility. However, he told council members he believes they are being unfairly charged with the new lease proposal in what is considered a useless space.

“We have incurred major expenses over the years basically due to leaking expansion joints,” Gile said. “In other words, the house we lease from the city has a hole in the roof.”

Councilor Gary Thompson made a motion to amend the resolution to lower the rent to $120 per year, or $10 per month, rather than the annual $300 stated in the resolution.

“I’ve said this as a serious joke, based on fair market value, we don’t have any fire-breathing dragons in Marshalltown that would want to rent that space to live in,” he said. “After being in there, if I felt I could go lower, I would. There is nobody in my mind that would use that space. . . I think this is one that’s an oddity. It sits by itself. There is no fair market value. So, I just feel that after seeing what it is, what everyone has done on their own expense, we’re a terrible landlord if you really want to get to the bottom of it.”

That’s a legitimate reason to lower their rent, to be fair.

It’s just not a reason you’re likely to hear spouted in most places, no matter what the club did or how bad the facility actually is, most would try to screw a gun club into oblivion if they could figure out how to do it.

Yet the CIRGC hosts gun safety classes and their space has been used by groups such as 4H and the Boy Scouts, as well as hosting competitions which bring in people from outside the community.

So in short, they do a lot for the town, and they weren’t getting a lot in return.

The town council made a good call, and they’re making it clear that they have some respect for the club, which is unusual, to say the least. I’m glad to see it, and I wish this wasn’t an anomaly in my news feed.

If it happens more, I’d like to know, because this sort of restores my faith in humanity just a bit.