Gun bills advance in Iowa House, Senate

DES MOINES — A bill that 'advances Iowans' constitutional rights' — specifically 2nd Amendment gun rights, won bipartisan support in the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday.

In the Senate, a similar bill was approved 3-0 by a Judiciary subcommittee setting up the likelihood the bills to clean up the permit process for carrying weapons, prohibit so-called straw man gun purchases, increase training requirements, and create a weapons permit database accessible to law enforcement will win passage this year.

Calling the bills the 'art of trying to find the possible,' floor manager Rep. Matt Windschitl, R-Missouri Valley, told Judiciary Committee colleagues 'it's time to have a thorough discussion about enhancing Iowans'' 2nd Amendment rights.'

The Judiciary Committee also voted 21-0 to limit cities' liability for damages incurred by individuals engaged in a broad range of 'recreational activities,' such as sledding.

Cities have sought the bill for years, but the change gained momentum after Dubuque banned sledding in some city parks in an attempt to limit liability from injury lawsuits.

The committee unanimously approved HSB 157 that extends the buffer zone between funerals and protests from 500 to 1,000. Rep. Zach Nunn, R-Bondurant, said the bill respects 1st Amendments rights of free speech at the same time protecting a family's privacy at funeral. The bill was offered in response to protests a military funerals.

In asking for passage of House Study Bill 201, was Windschitl said it was the result of collaboration of gun rights groups, law enforcement, and individuals who wanted parents to be able to provide gun safety instruction to children.

The bill is substantially the same as Senate Study Bill 1251 approved by the Senate subcommittee. They would make firearms suppressors legal as they are in 39 other states, require people carrying weapons to have their carry permit on them, allow peace officers to carry weapons onto school grounds at any time and allow parents to let children possess handguns while under their direct supervision.

Rep. Mary Wolfe, D-Clinton, who worked on the bill with Windschitl, called the HSB 201 a 'good balance between protecting Iowans and also allowing folks to exercise their 2nd Amendment rights' with minimal restrictions by the state.

It passed 19-2.

SSB 1251 generated more discussion. Representatives of law enforcement agencies and gun groups spoke in favor of the proposed changes, although Heather Calio of the National Rifle Association spoke against any age restriction and John Reed of the Iowa Firearms Coalition called the suppressors' provision a 'simple health issue' to muffle the concussion of a weapon when it is fired.

Both the House and Senate bills would make the names of permit holders secret, available only to law enforcement.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Steve Sodders, D-State Center, said he was willing to consider a suggestion that the confidentiality provision be modified to allow information compiled in a state public safety database to be released on an individual basis pertaining to domestic violence concerns but would bar en bloc publication of permit holders by media outlets.

'I don't want these lists published — period,' Reed said.

On the opposition side, Rev. Bill Steward of the Iowa Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church ticked off the bill's provision on permit confidentiality, gun silencers, and putting guns in the hands of 'second-graders' and told the subcommittee 'what could go wrong?'

A 9-year-old boy named Luther who spoke for Kids Against Violence noted that he can't drive a car, vote, or stay home alone so he asked 'why should someone my age be able to use a gun?' Teresa Bomhoff of the National Alliance on Mental Illness called it 'unfathomable' that such legislation got drafted in the first place.