This article contains discussion of suicide.

Eighteen-year-olds could purchase a handgun in Iowa under a new bill (HF 924) that advanced out of the Iowa House Judiciary Committee on March 6 and passed through the House on March 25.

After the House vote, which passed  79-18, the bill now moves to the Senate. The current age to be able to purchase a handgun is 21. 18-year-olds can currently purchase long guns, such as rifles and shotguns.

Drake University prohibits “the possession and use of weapons on property owned by Drake University,” including handguns and long guns. There are limited exceptions for law enforcement, military and security personnel.

Richard Rogers, a volunteer lobbyist for the Iowa Firearms Coalition, works with others on the coalition’s leadership team to push policy into the Iowa Legislature.

“This is entirely an IFC initiative,” said Rogers. “We’ve talked about it for three years.”

The law has historically prohibited licensed gun dealers from transferring a handgun to persons under 21, with some exceptions.

“It generally works as though we prohibit people under 21 from possessing or carrying a handgun, but in actual fact, that isn’t what the law does,” Rogers said.

Rogers says that even if a dealer can’t sell a gun to someone who is under 21, those under 21 are not prohibited from owning a gun at that age; they simply can’t be sold one.

Iowa repealed the need for a permit to carry in 2021.

“It’s our own young adults that we are penalizing at this point,” said Rogers. “18 and 19 and 20 year olds are fully adults under Iowa law and they have all the other fundamental rights of adults. They can raise a family, and they are morally and legally responsible for the protection of that family.”

Scott Law, the executive director of public safety at Drake, recognizes that there’s been a push at the national and state level for more open laws in regard to firearms.

“My personal feeling as a police officer is that more guns on the street are not good. This is anecdotal, but I know several people have just gone out and bought a gun. They’ve taken no lessons. They’ve not trained at all about what to do with or safety with those weapons. So those things do concern me,” Law said.

Jeff Anderson, a legislative advocate for the Iowa Conference of the United Methodist Church who has opposed the bill, said that the group’s position is based on a set of social principles that are adopted worldwide by the conference and on additional resolutions from the Iowa conference.

“We’re trying to reduce the impact of gun violence in general,” Anderson said. “Things like not requiring background checks, legal loopholes, less restrictions on guns, those would be things that, in general, we are opposed to. And with respect to reducing the age from 21 to 18, we have those same concerns.”

Anderson points to alcohol as an example of legal differentiation by age.

“The rationale there is because of decisions being made differently at different ages” Anderson said. “Alcohol is considered a public health issue, and we think guns are as well. Health and human services have stated that gun violence is an epidemic; thousands have been killed as a result. But the current administration [Trump] has had that [information] scrubbed and taken down.”

One argument from representatives opposed to the bill in the subcommittee is that young people are more dangerous because their brains aren’t yet fully developed.

“The idea that young people are more violent is true, but only for young men, not women,” said Rogers. “The claim that these people are too immature and it would be too dangerous is countered by the fact that they are adults.”

Anderson disagrees.

“It’s not a clear line where we say that 18 is the magic age where everyone makes great decisions,” Anderson said. “But the 21 age does give additional time for maturity and development, and when you look at the data, a lot of the violence is from those in the younger age range.”

Law agrees that young adults often still need time for development and maturity.

“When you’re adding in a whole group of people from 18 to 20 [and] giving them easy access to firearms, I don’t know if that’s the best decision we can make,” Law said.

Rogers dismissed concerns that lowering the age limit could increase gun violence or suicide rates.

“What is gun violence? Why don’t we talk about knife violence or fist violence? It’s a pejorative term meant to demonize the instrument and not the act,” Rogers said.

When addressing the idea that suicide rates could increase, Rogers pointed to Japan as a country with tight gun restrictions but a high suicide rate.

“Only roughly half of suicides [in the U.S.] are by gun, which shows that there are a lot of other effective means [to commit suicide],” Rogers said.

Anderson refers back to the notion of gun violence as a health epidemic to address such arguments.

“The fact that you don’t think it’s a health problem doesn’t change the fact that 48,000 people were killed last year,” Anderson said. “The other thing is that statistics still show that for younger individuals, gun violence is the leading cause of death. Our concern is that while we’ve seen restrictions on guns lifted, we have not seen a decline in gun-related deaths.”

Despite the bill, Law said that there’s not going to be any practical impact on Drake’s campus or policy toward firearms.

“As private property, even someone who is of age and has the right to carry a firearm still can’t carry on our campus. We’ve set a policy that only law enforcement or licensed companies that have gone through a process with the university can be on campus with firearms,” Law said.

Moving forward, Rogers expects that laws restricting young adults from being able to purchase a gun will be challenged before the Supreme Court. He expects that the court will “undoubtedly rule in favor of young people.”

Rogers says the IFC has been working on advancing gun rights for 15 years.

“The biggest issue is to guarantee that young adults have access to their 2nd Amendment rights,” he said. “I view the mission of the IFC and my personal mission is to ensure all levels of government here in the state recognize, protect, and actually respect the fundamental human right to keep and bear arms.”

Anderson pointed to his — and the conference’s — support for responsible gun ownership and appropriate precautions.

“If you look at [HF 132], which provided tax credits for gun safes, locks, things like that, we supported that because we think gun safety measures can save lives,” Anderson said.