Iowa childcare centers remain free to keep loaded guns on premises without telling parents

Iowans running childcare centers remain free to keep loaded guns on the premises without telling parents, after legislators failed to heed the governor’s suggestion that they discuss proposed limits.

Gov. Kim Reynolds last December blocked state regulators' plans to require safe storage of firearms in childcare centers, including those run out of private homes. The regulators also wanted to require childcare operators to notify their clients' parents if guns were present.

The Republican governor said in December that she would prefer legislators, not state administrators, decide such an important issue. A Democratic state representative responded by introducing a bill on the matter in February. But the bill stalled with no discussion. Legislators adjourned this month without taking it up.

Reynolds' spokeswoman. Brenna Smith, noted Thursday that under Iowa's criminal law, a person can be charged with child endangerment for leaving an unsecured gun in an area where a child younger than 14 could reasonably be expected to find it. That law is sometimes invoked after a child is injured in an accidental shooting. Smith said state inspectors who see an unsecured gun in a childcare setting could call the police or cite that law in withholding a license.

Last year's Department of Human Services proposal would have added specific licensing rules regarding the storage of guns. A 2013 study done by the Early Learning Policy Group listed Iowa as one of 12 states that had no such rules regarding the safe storage of guns in childcare centers.

Some states ban all guns from childcare centers. Iowa regulators did not propose going that far. Their proposal would have required that guns kept in childcare centers be locked up and kept separate from ammunition. The proposal also would have required parents to be notified if a gun was kept in a childcare center, and it would have banned loaded guns from being carried in vehicles used to transport a childcare center's young clients.

Sheila Hansen, policy director for the Child and Family Policy Center, said her group will keep urging the state to pass the proposal. “At a bare minimum, a parent should be notified if there is a gun at the location their child is being cared for and if a gun is in any vehicle that child is transported in," she said.

Reynolds, who supports gun-rights groups, was asked in December if she believed the state should regulate gun storage in childcare settings. She replied: “I think we’re going to discuss that. I think we want to bring all stakeholders to the table. We haven’t done that. We want to make sure that we’re looking at it from all perspectives, and then decide.”

State Rep. Lisa Heddens, D-Ames, then introduced the proposed rules as a bill, House File 2245. Thirteen other Democrats joined her as sponsors. But Rep. Joel Fry, Republican chairman of the Human Resources Committee, declined to assign it to a subcommittee, which is the first step toward passage.

In an email to the Register, Fry said: “Rep. Heddens never approached me about her bill and no one else indicated that it was a priority piece of legislation, so the committee didn’t take any action this past session ... If someone introduces similar legislation next session, we will be sure to handle it like any other bill.”

Heddens said she was disappointed Fry ignored her bill. “It would have crossed his desk. He certainly would have been aware that the legislation was there for discussion,” she said. She plans to reintroduce the bill next year.

The governor blocked the Department of Human Services rules in December after gun-rights advocates contacted her office about them.

One of those activists was Richard Rogers, a lobbyist for the Iowa Firearms Coalition. Rogers said Thursday that he might support some rules on gun storage in childcare centers, “as long as they’re workable for reasonable people.” He said the rules proposed last fall seemed rushed and could unfairly restrict people with legitimate reasons to carry a gun while at a childcare center or while transporting children to or from one. He registered as opposed to Heddens' bill.