House OKs domestic abuse firearms forfieture measure

By James Q. Lynch 

The Gazette

DES MOINES – Passage of a domestic violence bill its sponsor said would “prevent the violence, terror and death that occurs when domestic abuse is mixed with easy, easy access to guns” took the Iowa House most of the day Wednesday.

Nearly six hours after beginning debate, the House voted 73-25 to approve Senate File 2357 that floor manager Rep. Deborah Berry, D-Waterloo, said would prohibit people who are the subject of a protective order or have been convicted of domestic abuse from possessing firearms. It now goes back to the Senate where it was approved 36-11.

However, that was just a moment for the bill's backers who have been working for its passage for the past 11 years, said Rachel Scott, lobbyist for the Commission on the Status of Women. Most years, the bill never won committee approval.

What's changed? Scott isn't sure. A high-profile case in Des Moines has focused attention on the issue. Therese Ann Lynch allegedly was kidnapped by her husband, Randall Moore, from a shopping mall and shoot at their apartment.  Moore' had a history of domestic abuse, including four different women filing protective orders against him in just the last four years.

Lynch was not the first domestic abuse victim, Berry said. Since 1995, when the federal law SF 2357 is based on was enacted, 205 Iowans have been killed in domestic abuse murders, she said. Of those, 114 involved guns.

Although Scott said the Attorney General's Office worked with the NRA to find language the group would not oppose, Berry emphasized the bill was not about guns.

“The bill is about victims and not firearms,” she said.

However, for the purposes of House debate the bill was labeled “firearm forfeiture” not “domestic abuse,” House Minority Leader Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha, pointed out.

And much of the debate was about firearms, including an amendment by Rep. Matt Windschitl, R-Missouri Valley, to provide – at the abuser's expense -- self-defense training to people who have been the victim of domestic abuse or have been threatened with domestic abuse. Victims also could get a sales tax exemption on weapons purchases.

“This will empower victims to stand up and say, ‘Not this time, not today,'” Windschitl said.

Current law has not stopped abuse, he said, so it would make sense to try a new approach. By empowering victims “to come to a point where they say, ‘No, I won't take it,'” may help break the cycle of violence perpetuated by domestic abuse, Windschitl said.

After lengthy debate by majority Democrats, they voted down the amendment 44-53.

Although a federal law already calls for removing weapons from abusers, Berry said there aren't enough federal Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, Firearms and Explosives agents in Iowa to enforce it. Also, local law enforcement is hesitant to enforce federal law, she said.

The bill calls for people who are the subject of a protective order or have been convicted of domestic abuse to relinquish firearms by selling them, transferring them to a qualified party, such as a family member, or turning them over to law enforcement to hold for the length of the protective order.