Two mass shootings occurred in California during my family's four-day winter get-away there. Eighteen people died, and 10 others were injured.
The day before we returned home, a San Diego Union-Tribune front-page headline jumped out at us: "Police: 2 students killed, man hurt in Des Moines shooting."
California isn't known for gun violence. Neither is Des Moines. Although the senior citizen Asian shooters in California and their Asian and Hispanic victims were demographic anomalies, their motivations were familiar. At Half Moon Bay, where violence spilled onto two mushroom farms, the suspected trigger was a supervisor's demand to pay $100 for accidentally damaging a forklift. Gang violence was the cause in Des Moines. The shooter's motivation at the Lunar New Year Celebration at a Monterey Park dance studio is unknown. It may have been a mental health issue. Gun violence is multifaceted. But one thing is certain: Fewer of these tragedies would occur if we didn't have so many guns.
In the month of January, there were 40 mass shootings in the U.S. It's an increase from 34 at this time in 2022, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit research group. However, mass shootings represent only about 4% of all gun deaths, according to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. In 2021, guns were at the root of 81% of homicides, and 55% of suicides.
California has some of the strictest gun laws in the U.S. This includes gun bans for domestic violence offenders, and for individuals considered a danger to others or themselves. Large-capacity magazines, noise-muffling silencers, and semiautomatic guns also are banned. A written test is required to obtain a Firearm Safety Certificate, and only one handgun or semiautomatic rifle per month can be purchased. There's a 10-day waiting period between applying for and obtaining firearms. Beginning in January, Californians now are allowed to sue anyone who distributes banned assault weapons or ghost guns.
It's no coincidence that California also has the sixth-lowest gun ownership rate. Despite "straw man arguments," California has one of the lowest rates of gun death in the U.S. The risk of dying from a mass shooting there is lower, according to the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California. San Diego's red flag law may be a model: More than 1,083 gun violence restraining orders have been recorded since 2017. Its homicide rates also are lower per capita. However, owners of previously legal firearms in California don't always relinquish banned weapons.
More guns than people
What are we doing to reduce gun violence in Iowa? When I look at Iowa, a state that has been home to generations of my family, I recognize many issues requiring thoughtful consideration, and prompt action by the Legislature. Putting more guns in the hands of more people is not one of them.
In recent years, Iowa legislators have pulled the trigger on round after round of needless and dangerous gun-promoting laws. House Majority Leader Matt Windschtl has been at the forefront of many bills, although his family's gun sales business seems a blatant conflict of interest to me. He's been mum on specific proposals to date this year. Will members of the legislature continue to follow him like a bunch of lemmings?
The end result of more firearms in the hands of more people is more senseless accidental injuries and fatalities. There's no place for a gun at a city council meeting (this should be obvious after the 1986 murder in Mount Pleasant). A gun-carrying individual is a threat at school board meetings. Allowing handguns in the Capitol simply asks for trouble. The hands of most children under age 14 are too small to grip a gun, regardless of adult supervision.
As an Iowa citizen, I feel disenfranchised by the mindless fixation on a single amendment that's no more important than any other amendment to our U.S. Constitution. It's a shameful hoax to interpret that our Constitution entitles the general citizenry to unlimited gun ownership.
Yet, as a result of last November's election, Iowa is one of four states that has a 2nd amendment on steroids ensconced in our state constitution. Most believe that adding the language, "Any and all restrictions of this right shall be subject to strict scrutiny" will make it more difficult to restrict gun access.
As Adam Winkler, a specialist in American constitutional law and gun policy at the UCLA School of Law, has written, "State law is embracing such a robust, anti-regulatory view of the right to keep and bear arms that the judicial Second Amendment, at least as currently construed, seems likely to have less and less to say about the shape of America's gun laws."
Then there's the proliferation of unregistered ghost guns. President Biden issued a federal rule to regulate the sale of DYI kits. I read in disbelief last year of a local newspaper columnist’s attempt to build a firearm with a 3D printer. His rationale was the fear that the government would come for his guns. I responded that as a law-abiding citizen, I have a right to be protected from individuals printing unregistered 3-D firearms.
I also suggested that a more constructive use of 3D printing would be expanding opportunities for Iowans to own affordable houses. Iowa State University and Iowa Central Community College are exploring this. The lack of affordable housing poses a stumbling block to economic growth in small towns and more new housing would truly improve the quality of life for many rural Iowans. However, this columnist apparently still is at it, as I read recently that he damaged some parts in the process of calibration. "Nothing I can't replace," he wrote. Core components still can be obtained online.
Red flag laws have been enacted in 19 states and the District of Columbia. States adopted dozens of new gun safety laws in 2022. Not in Iowa. We don't know how many shootings are prevented by specific laws. We do know that individual states only can do so much, in the absence of broad federal laws.
It doesn't help that last June the U.S. Supreme Court upended local gun laws in a half-dozen states, including California, regarding permits to carry concealed weapons in public.
In October of 2017, I attended one of Sen. Grassley's town hall meetings. There was standing room only. The recent Las Vegas shooting had left 58 dead, and wounded 500. I urged him to push for increased gun regulations, especially on bump stocks. I was quoted as follows in the Ames Tribune:
"I want you to use your influence in Senate to stop the slaughter we have going on in our country today, with the use of military-style equipment that's not needed for protection, that's not needed for hunting. I believe studies show the majority of Americans are for reasonable gun control."
The crowd applauded.
Sen. Grassley replied he didn't think there were enough votes in the Senate to bring gun control to the floor unless there was a bipartisan effort behind it. He said it would be "pretty hard" to find that agreement.
He also said regulating bump stocks could be achieved if the Trump administration gave guidance to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms to ban the devices, circumventing a legislative approach. (The US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals recently struck down a ban on bump stocks.)
An unacceptable norm
The Bipartisan Safer Communities law passed last year expanded background checks for the youngest gun buyers and invested in mental health and violence intervention programs, including state red flag laws. A federal ban on assault weapons, along with legislation raising the minimum purchase age to 21, was introduced earlier this month by three Democratic senators: Feinstein, Blumenthal, and Murphy. Its chances of passage in a divided Congress are low.
I refuse to give up. The acceptance of gun violence is an unacceptable norm in Iowa, or the U.S. Behind every gun violence statistic is an individual or family impacted by trauma.
The first week in February is the fifth annual National Gun Violence Survivors Week, initiated by Everytown for Gun Safety. By this week, more Americans have been killed by guns than are killed in other high-income countries in one entire year. Everytown's new report (https://everytownresearch.org/report/gun-violence-survivors-america/ ) reveals that 59% of adults in the U.S. or someone they know or care about have experienced gun violence in their lifetimes.
Yet earlier this week, Republican Rep. Andrew Clyde from Georgia, owner of a gun store, began handing out assault weapon lapel pins to his colleagues. Regardless of such juvenile attention-getting antics, can we find a way forward in Iowa to focus our attention on specific high-risk individuals and situations? As Gabby Giffords insists, "Progress happens inch by inch."
Iowa legislators have touted the need to provide our kids with choice in education. Yet, their choice to expand gun laws sends the message that our children are an acceptable sacrifice at the altar of the gun lobby. More kids die by guns than in car crashes, according to the CDC. Teachers are at risk, too. Two guns have been confiscated at two Des Moines high schools during this past week. The horrific shooting of a teacher by a 6-year in Newport News, Virginia cries out for common sense solutions.
I'm unsure how the 6-year Virginia child with an "acute disability" could reach a six-foot high shelf in a closet, and use a key to unlock the trigger lock of his mother's legally purchased handgun. Iowa has a safe gun storage law. Yet last year, a Des Moines father lost his 4-year-old daughter when she used his unsecured gun to inadvertently shoot herself.
Most families have been persuaded to buckle up their kids in the car, through a coordinate campaign of harm reduction messages, social pressures, CDC evidence-based research, and expanded local data bases. How about a public health campaign regarding safe gun storage?
According to Everytown Research, 11 children in Iowa have died of unintentional gunshots since 2015. Are our pediatricians asking nonjudgmental questions about gun storage at home? Since 2020, the emergency department at the St. Louis Children's Hospital in Missouri has prominently displayed a basket filled with gun locks, along with pamphlets about safe storage. Free of charge. Are Iowa hospitals following suit?
Tennessee recently passed a law exempting the purchase of gun locks, gun safes and other safety devices from state sales tax. Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Texas, Virginia, and Washington have similar laws. I'd like to see companies incentivized to sell firearms with gun storage or safety devices. Smart gun technology is a strategy requiring an owner's fingerprint or handprint to discharge. It addresses three issues (1) unintentional shooting by children, (2) gun theft, and (3) teen suicides. According to Morning Consult, a global decision intelligence company, over half of gun owners back the development of smart guns; so do 46% of gun non-owners.
We don't need to live like this. And it's no way to die.
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Nik Heftman, The Seven Times, Iowa and California
Beth Hoffman: In the Dirt, Lovilla
Dana James: New Black Iowa, Des Moines
Pat Kinney: View from Cedar Valley, Waterloo
Fern Kupfer: Fern and Joe, Ames
Robert Leonard: Deep Midwest: Politics and Culture, Bussey
Tar Macias: Hola Iowa, Iowa
Kurt Meyer, Showing Up, St. Ansgar
Kyle Munson, Kyle Munson’s Main Street, Des Moines
Jane Nguyen, The Asian Iowan, West Des Moines
John Naughton: My Life, in Color, Des Moines
Chuck Offenburger: Iowa Boy Chuck Offenburger, Jefferson and Des Moines
Barry Piatt: Piatt on Political Behind the Curtain, Washington, D.C.
Macy Spensley, The Creative Midwesterner, Davenport/Des Moines
Mary Swander: Mary Swander’s Buggy Land, Kalona
Mary Swander: Mary Swander’s Emerging Voices, Kalona
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I can feel the passion in your writing Cheryl. You are so right that we need to do something but that seems lost on the people in power. It is so frustrating to live in Iowa right now.
Thank you for writing this column, Cheryl. My hope is that we can move on from the so called “slippery slope” of the gun control conversation which seems to have made things worse and start talking about responsible gun ownership. We expect drivers and cars to be licensed in order to drive. Insurance companies take acts of recklessness into consideration when they price policies which are required to drive a car or own a home or get health insurance. Why can’t we talk about insuring guns which takes into consideration responsibility, licensing and education like cars? Why can’t we just talk?