Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds' staff recently blocked proposed state rules that would have regulated the storage of any guns present in child-care centers, including those run in private homes.

The Department of Human Services rules would have required that guns kept in child-care operations be locked away and kept separate from ammunition. The proposal also would have required that parents be notified if a gun is kept on the premises of a childcare center, and it would have barred loaded guns from being carried in vehicles used to transport a childcare center's young clients.

Unlike most other states, Iowa has no regulations regarding firearms in childcare centers. Mark Anderson, chairman of the Department of Human Services' advisory council, said the proposal seemed like common sense. “It just says you can’t have loaded, unsecured weapons when you’re watching other people’s children,” he said in an interview.

But Gov. Kim Reynolds contends the proposal needs more discussion. She told reporters Tuesday that it might be better to have legislators debate the matter instead of letting administrators use their authority to implement rules on it.

Reynolds, a Republican who has supported gun rights groups, was asked at her weekly press conference if she believed the state should regulate gun storage in childcare settings. “I think we’re going to discuss that,” she replied. “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.”

An Iowa child welfare advocacy group said Tuesday that it supported the Department of Human Services’ proposed rules on the storage of guns in childcare centers. “Children need to be safe. Safety isn’t a debatable issue,” said Sheila Hansen, policy director for the Child and Family Policy Center. “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.”

A national survey done in 2013 by the Early Learning Policy Group found that Iowa was one of 12 states that had no regulations on guns in childcare centers. Some states bar the presence of guns in such businesses, the survey showed.

Iowa Department of Human Services' staff members explained their reasoning in documents accompanying the proposed rules last week: "While having weapons in any child care setting is highly discouraged, the department is proposing allowance of weapons and firearms only under specific conditions to ensure the safety of children in care," the staff wrote. The staff noted that similar rules already are in effect for Iowa foster care homes.

The childcare gun rules were withdrawn during a Dec. 13 meeting of the Iowa Council on Human Services, which must approve all such rules before state administrators can put them into effect. Anderson, who is a Lutheran minister from Waverly, has served on the council about six years. He said he couldn’t recall a situation in which a proposed rule was abruptly pulled off the council’s agenda without a clear explanation. During the meeting, a department administrator said the proposal was being withdrawn so department staff members could work on the wording. Anderson asked the administrator when the proposal would be brought back to the council for consideration. She told him she was unsure.

Department staff members wrote in the proposal that they had posted a standard “notice of intended action” about the rules on Nov. 8. No one from the public responded with a formal comment, the staff wrote.

A leading gun-rights advocate said he had been unaware of the department's proposed rules before the comment period closed. Richard Rogers, who is a lobbyist for the Iowa Firearms Coalition, said he expressed concern on Dec. 11 to the governor’s office. Reynolds' staff assured him the proposal was being put on hold, he said.

Rogers said his group hasn't taken a formal stance on the childcare firearm rules, but he considers some of the proposal's language vague. For example, he said, it wasn’t clear to him if the gun storage rules would apply at all times or just when a childcare business’ young clients were present in a home.

“We’re for the safety of children,” Rogers said, but said he could imagine instances in which the proposed rules would present an unreasonable barrier. For example, he said, if a man ran an in-home childcare business and his wife was a sheriff’s deputy who came home for lunch, she might want to drive a couple of the childcare clients to their soccer activities without unloading her gun. “Would that be allowed?” he said.

The proposal also was scheduled to be considered last week by the Legislature’s Administrative Rules Review Committee, but the Department of Human Services withdrew it from their agenda as well. Sen. Mark Chelgren, an Ottumwa Republican who serves on the committee, said in an interview that he raised concerns about the proposal before the meeting, and he appreciated the department’s decision to withdraw it. Policies of such magnitude should be decided by elected legislators, not administrators, he said.

Chelgren said some parts of the proposal are worth pursuing, including requirements that guns be secured when they’re in childcare operations and that parents be notified if a gun is going to be present at a daycare facility. “Those things, I think, are common sense,” he said. But he said he disagrees with requiring that ammunition be stored separately from a gun because that would make it difficult for a childcare operator to use the gun to protect children in an emergency.

Matt Highland, a spokesman for the Department of Human Services, said Director Jerry Foxhoven pulled the rules last week after discussing the matter with the governor's staff. "The department will take a step back to consider how this should be addressed in rules or in legislation," he wrote in an email to the Register.