Grassley Statement On Gun Legislation Vote

Press Release

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) made the following comment regarding his vote against the Senate's recently proposed gun legislation.

"Schools should be the safest place for our kids. I share the concerns of Iowans who are disgusted with gun violence, especially when those tragedies involve children. I commend the negotiators for earnestly working in a bipartisan way to produce an agreement. This is a difficult issue. Much of their legislation is good, but I have very specific concerns about safeguarding constitutional due process rights that prevent me from supporting the bill in its entirety.

"There are legal definitions too vague to be enforced, or at least consistently enforced. Courts and respondents must always be able to determine who is subject to the law. It turned me against the legislation when I heard my colleagues say that the courts would have to sort out what the bill means. This ambiguity needed to be clarified, so Americans can read and understand the law with certainty and so no one's constitutional rights are inappropriately swept up without recourse. Unfortunately, there was no process to make these necessary clarifications. The bill bypassed committee and no amendments were allowed. Having ten senators write an unamendable bill and having only limited debate is no way to run the U.S. Senate.

"I will continue working to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, promote responsible gun ownership and advance legislation like the EAGLES Act to prevent mass shootings before they happen, while also protecting Iowans' Second Amendment and constitutional due process rights."

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