(Radio Iowa) – In response to last month’s school shooting in Perry, Republicans in the Iowa House are proposing that Iowa school or college employees with professional gun permits be allowed to carry weapons on school grounds. Nathan Gibson, school board president of the Interstate-35 district in Truro,said the bill could help districts that want their staff to be armed, but can’t get liability insurance. “This is long overdue,” he said, “and something we need to do to protect the most precious assets we have in our life.”

Angela Olsen, director of special projects for the Spirit Lake School District, said her district had armed staff for six months, but cancelled the program after struggling to find an insurance carrier. Olsen said having a school resource officer in the high school isn’t enough. “And I would compare it to Perry, like they have an SRO but he wasn’t there,” Olsen said. “…If we have the ability to have multiple people in multiple buildings at all times of the day, it’s the only way to address an active shooter at the time.”

Catherine Lucas, a lawyer with the Iowa Department of Public Safety, told lawmakers the agency has a lot of unanswered questions about the bill, like what kind of weapons would school staff be allowed to carry and who would do the required training for armed school staff. “Ohio has a program like this and they have a staff of 40. Currently the Governor’s School Safety Bureau in Iowa has one sworn member,” Lucas said. “…Rolling out all the training is going to be a very significant lift on the Department of Public Safety.”

Hannah Hayes, a Des Moines high school senior, is in the Students Demand Action group that supports new gun restrictions. Hayes, the only student who testified during the House subcommittee hearing on the bill, urged lawmakers to oppose it. “Making schools a war zone is not going to make me feel safer,” she said.

The bill also would require the state’s 11 largest school districts to hire at least one officer from the local police department or a private firm to provide security in high school buildings. There would be no mandate for other Iowa high schools, but all school districts could apply for a $50,000 state grant to cover the cost of a security officer.

(Radio Iowa) – A man convicted of killing a teenager during a robbery in Davenport in 1974 has died in prison. Kenneth Ray Sheffey was convicted of first-degree murder in the shooting and killing of 15-year-old Roddy Lee Hahn. Hahn was helping James Christensen deliver bread to the supermarket early in the morning and the two discovered Sheffey was inside.

Christensen was seriously wounded, and Sheffey was also convicted of assault with intent to commit murder, along with breaking and entering.

He was sentenced to life in prison in November of 1974, and the Department of Corrections says Sheffey died of natural causes on February 8th at the age of 71.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Congressman Zach Nunn says more Russian assets need to be seized before he’ll vote for more U-S military aide to Ukraine. “There’s $300 billion in Russian assets that are currently frozen in U.S. banks and European banks, basically money that’s making interest for Russian oligarks,” Nunn says. “Before I put one single U.S. taxpayer dollar into fighting back against Russia, I want to make sure we’re holding Russia accountable in a meaningful way to pay for the destruction, the invasion, the loss of tens of thousands of lives in Ukraine.”

Nunn, a Republican from Bondurant, proposed a resolution last year that would use those frozen Russian assets to pay for rebuilding Ukraine. Nunn says it’s too soon to speculate about what might happen in the House if the Senate passes a bill this week that would provide U-S military support for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.  “I think we need to figure out if the senate’s going to be able to move anything before we start talking about hypotheticals,” Nunn says.

Nunn says no foreign aid package to Ukraine, Israel or Taiwan should send cash to those countries and, instead, should be about providing weapons, ammunition and other military assets.