Iowa student gun safety advocates push for 3-day waiting period

Students with March for Our Lives Iowa said this week they plan to focus during the 2023 legislative session on firearm regulations that can hold up to the newly implemented state constitutional amendment.

Group leaders held a news conference Tuesday at the Iowa Capitol in Des Moines. Each year, the gun violence prevention group brings up “common sense gun policies” its plans to advocate for at the Capitol, but co-legislative director Waverly Zhao said Iowa’s midterm results will make implementing such measures more difficult.

Iowa voters approved the “Right to Keep and Bear Arms” state constitutional amendment in the November election, with 65 percent supporting it. The new language means that any legislation restricting gun rights must hold up to “strict scrutiny” in court, meaning the measure must serve a “compelling state interest.”

“Strict scrutiny will endanger any hopes of introducing common-sense gun policy in the state of Iowa,” Zhao said. “Additionally, the vague and overbroad wording of the legislation leaves the definitions of terms like ‘arms’ and ‘restrictions’ up to broad interpretations, which may serve to undermine the few current gun regulation policies in Iowa.”

But the gun safety advocates said there are still measures state legislators can pass they argue could help stop gun violence in Iowa. In its 2023 legislative agenda, March for Our Lives recommended Iowa legislators pass a mandatory three-day waiting period, universal background checks and mandatory reporting of lost or stolen firearms.

Esha Bolar, an 18-year-old high school senior from Johnston and co-state director for the advocacy group, said March for Our Lives had to take a step back from some of its more “ambitious” policy goals, like police demilitarization, given the new amendment and conservative majorities in both chambers of the Iowa Legislature.

“Now I don’t think that’s possible, amongst a lot of other kinds of gun violence prevention policy that we’ve researched in the past,” Bolar said. “But we know that with these three priorities we can see some kind of change happening.”

Bolar said she believes all three of the recommended policies will be able to hold up to any strict scrutiny challenges. Other states have implemented a three-day waiting period and universal background checks for acquiring firearms, which have survived court challenges finding they did not violate Second Amendment rights from the U.S. Constitution. However, new state constitutional amendment offers protections beyond the Second Amendment, which does not hold laws to the strict scrutiny test.

March for Our Lives speakers also said that mandatory reporting of lost or stolen firearms would align with Iowa Code, and pointed to a piece of legislation Democratic Rep. Art Staed introduced in 2021 which did not progress past committee.

Bolar said the organization is working with Democratic state legislators like Rep. Ako Abdul-Samad and Sen. Sarah Trone Garriott. Some Republicans have also been open to discussions about gun violence prevention, she said.

March for Our Lives advocates also say they hope to see more action from Gov. Kim Reynolds on gun violence in the upcoming year. Reynolds announced the School Safety Bureau’s creation in June with $100 million in federal funds to address school shootings and other violence. Bolar said the group wants to see how these funds have been invested, and in addition to talking with the governor about further measures.

“Kim Reynolds knows that it’s an issue,” Bolar said. “It’s happening in her own high schools in her own state. I think now we just need to try and figure out where we can take that.”

This article first appeared in the Iowa Capital Dispatch.