
Photo by Julie Fleming
A package of stricter gun control bills aimed at preventing mass shootings such as what happened at an Uvalde, Texas, elementary school, passed the US House of Representatives on a mostly party-line vote on Wednesday.
Cindy Axne, Iowa’s lone Democratic representative, voted for the Protecting Our Kids Act, which passed the Democrat-majority House on a 223-204 vote. Iowa’s other three representatives, Randy Feenstra, Ashley Hinson, and Mariannette Miller-Meeks, all Republicans, voted against it.
Axne cited the Robb Elementary mass shooting in Texas that killed 19 children and two teachers, as well as the recent homicides of two women in Ames, as her reasons.
“The horrors we’ve recently seen—from the children killed at the elementary school in Texas to the two young women shot in the church parking lot in Iowa—have been too much,” she wrote in a Facebook post. “Tonight, I cast my vote to protect our children. Senators, it’s your turn.”
[inline-ad id=”1″]
The act would, among other things:
- raise the legal age to buy certain semiautomatic rifles from 18 to 21;
- establish new offenses for gun trafficking and selling large-capacity magazines, and allow local governments to compensate individuals who surrender such magazines through a buyback program;
- create a tax incentive for sales of safe storage devices, and criminal penalties for breaking requirements regulating home storage;
- strengthen existing federal regulations on bump stocks and “ghost guns,” or guns without serial numbers that are assembled with the help of 3-D printers.
Barring filibuster reform, however, the Senate is unlikely to pass it.
Republicans continue to insist that any measure to regulate firearms is against their interpretation of the Second Amendment, or what Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio called “God-given rights.”
Hinson, who represents northeast Iowa, said she prefers a Republican House bill that would attempt to solve the issue by funding more school counselors and police officers in schools. It would be paid for with money clawed back from states and local governments that hadn’t spent their coronavirus relief bill funding.
“We have to enforce the laws on the books and stop guns from getting into the wrong hands without infringing on the rights of law-abiding citizens,” Hinson said in a statement.
[inline-ad id=”2″]
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi took the GOP to task for their inaction.
“America has lost more children from gun violence than any other cause. Does that embarrass you?” she said. “To think that, in our country, more children have died from gun violence than any other cause?”
Progress Iowa said the act would “make our communities safer” in a statement Wednesday night.
“The vast majority of Americans are behind common sense gun laws,” executive director Matt Sinovic said. “The will of the people should matter more than power and profit. It’s time to take real action to prevent gun violence in our schools and communities.”
By Amie Rivers
6/9/22
Iowa Starting Line is part of an independent news network and focuses on how state and national decisions impact Iowans’ daily lives. We rely on your financial support to keep our stories free for all to read. You can contribute to us here. Also follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
[inline-ad id=”0″]
Support Our Cause
Thank you for taking the time to read our work. Before you go, we hope you'll consider supporting our values-driven journalism, which has always strived to make clear what's really at stake for Iowans and our future.
Since day one, our goal here at Iowa Starting Line has always been to empower people across the state with fact-based news and information. We believe that when people are armed with knowledge about what's happening in their local, state, and federal governments—including who is working on their behalf and who is actively trying to block efforts aimed at improving the daily lives of Iowan families—they will be inspired to become civically engaged.


Iowa Republicans make outlawing gay marriage key 2024 campaign priority
Iowa Republicans have made outlawing gay marriage a key goal in their 2024 party platform. During the Iowa GOP’s 2024 state convention on Saturday,...

Department of Justice says Iowa immigration law violates US Constitution
If Iowa doesn’t suspend the enforcement of its new immigration law by May 7, the state could face a federal lawsuit, according to the Des Moines...

Rushing: Iowa State president said the quiet part out loud
I want to thank Iowa State University President Wendy Wintersteen for doing us all a favor by finally saying the quiet part out loud: all the...

Iowa sets aside almost $180 million for year two of voucher program
Iowa has committed nearly $180 million in taxpayer funds to support private school tuition in the 2024-25 school year, which is almost $50 million...

Kalbach: Immediate action needed on corporate ag pollution
Iowa agriculture has undergone substantial changes over the past 40 years. We see it all around us. Rather than crops and livestock being raised on...

VIDEO: Jochum calls Gov. Reynolds’ summer meal program a ‘hunger game’
Iowa Gov. Reynolds announced a competitive $900,000 grant program to feed Iowa children over the summer, months after she declined $29 million in...