The answer is... Hyperbole

What do you get from an uninformed "journalist" and a confused and (possibly) power hungry police chief?

New gun-carrying ordinance

Except that it hasn't passed. Because if it did, it would be voided by state law.

But the Ottumwa police chief and the city attorney obviously know better than the laws of the state.

Another statement for the chief:

“As it is now, there is no way of policing it. We could have 50 people show up with hand guns, sitting in a city council meeting and nothing can be done,” said Chief Clark. “The only thing that anyone can do across the state is wait for something deadly to happen. Someone could pull their coat and flash their handgun at city council members as a way to intimidate them, and there’s nothing we can do about it. All we can do is wait for someone to pull a handgun before we can react.”

According to the chief, it's legal to "menace", "threaten" or "intimidate" another person with a weapon.

The officers of Ottumwa will sit on their ass-ends and do nothing?

I never liked being in that town.