Gun control group lowers Iowa’s rating

Iowa's gun safety laws notched down since last year in the eyes of the Giffords Law Center, a national gun control advocacy organization.

The main reason: Iowa's sweeping gun rights law adopted last year by the Legislature.

'Iowa's grade dropped from a C to a C- after lawmakers enacted a deadly Stand Your Ground law, weakened handgun permit requirements, and allowed concealed carry in the state capitol,” the group reported this week in releasing its state-by-state rankings. 'Iowa could raise its grade and save lives by immediately repealing the dangerous gun laws passed in 2017, requiring background checks for all gun purchases, or passing an extreme risk protection order law.”

The organization gave the state high marks for laws requiring those convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence, and those subject to domestic violence protective orders, to surrender guns.

Iowa is not among the handful of states that have extreme risk protection order laws. Sometimes called 'red-flag” laws, they allow family, household members or police to petition a court to temporarily remove guns from a person proven to be at risk of harming himself or others.

The stand-your-ground provision. passed as part of a broad gun rights bill last year, removes the duty to retreat if a person believes his or her life is threatened.

The stand-your-ground defense currently is being argued in an early Aug. 27, 2017, fatal shooting on a busy Iowa City Pedestrian Mall. Lamar Wilson, convicted in the shooting and awaiting trial on a gang-related charge, is arguing he should be exempt from punishment because he fired in self-defense.

The Giffords group gave half the states an F for gun safety laws. That includes Florida, where 17 people where killed Feb. 14 in a high school shooting and 49 were killed June 12, 2016, in an attack on a nightclub.

California ranks at the top of the Giffords list, receiving the only 'A” grade for its strong gun laws and relatively low gun death rate.

The report comes as survivors of the school shooting in Parkland, Fla., are rallying support for gun control and as Washington grapples with how to respond.

'It's very timely,” said Laura Cutilletta, legal director of the Giffords Law Center. 'People are demanding change right now, and one of the reasons people are demanding change is because of awareness.”

The Washington Post contributed to this report.