Iowa senators must stand up for gun compromise

FILE - Reggie Daniels pays his respects at a memorial at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on June 9, 2022, honoring the two teachers and 19 students killed in the shooting at the school on May 24. For families fractured along red house-blue house lines, summer’s slate of reunions and weddings poses another round of tension. Pandemic restrictions have melted away but gun control, the fight for reproductive rights, the Jan. 6 insurrection hearings, who's to blame for soaring inflation and a range of other issues continue to simmer. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

Iowa Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst are taking a wait-and-see approach to a potential bipartisan package of gun safety measures.

The package, negotiated by a bipartisan group of 20 senators, would provide states with grants to enact red-flag laws keeping guns out of the hands of people who are judged to be a threat to themselves and others. It would expand background checks to cover juvenile records for gun buyers under 21 and would close the “boyfriend loophole” by banning gun purchases by people convicted of domestic abuse in dating relationships, among other provisions.

The measures have yet to be drafted into legislation. Ernst and Grassley say they want to see the final details before deciding how to vote. That seems reasonable on the surface. But given the senators’ records on guns, it also seems like a prelude to opposition. Grassley is seeking re-election this fall and has opposed gun safety measures in the past. Ernst has received more than $3 million in campaign donations from the National Rifle Association over her political career. She opposed closing the boyfriend loophole as part of the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act.

But this is a critical moment. We’ve seen the massacres in a Buffalo grocery store and at an elementary school in Uvalde, Tex. In Iowa, a gunman killed two women outside an Ames church. He had been charged with harassing one of the women after a breakup. The cry of “enough is enough” is resonating across the nation. Allowing the latest wave of mass shootings to pass without any action to make these tragedies less likely is not an acceptable outcome.

The Senate compromise is tenuous. Support from senators such as Grassley and Ernst for these modest proposals could prove vital to making sure the deal doesn’t collapse like so many other similar efforts. The most important details the senators need to know is the list of innocent victims gunned down in stores, schools, churches and countless other public venues.

It's no time to replay to the same old politics over guns. It’s time for Ernst and Grassley to stand up to the violence plaguing our nation and support the compromise. It’s time to show some courage in the face of American carnage.

(319) 398-8262; editorial@thegazette.com