The gun control group Newtown Action Alliance reacted to Thursday’s shotgun/handgun attack at Perry High School by pushing for an “assault weapons” ban.
Breitbart News reported that a 17-year-old student at the Perry, Iowa, high school opened fire shortly after 7:30 a.m., killing one student and wounding others before killing himself. The 17-year-old was armed with a shotgun and a handgun.
Newtown Action Alliance responded to the attack with a post on X which said in part, “We can prevent these school shootings if Congress passes the assault weapons ban.”
An “assault weapons” ban would not have prohibited sales of handguns and pump shotguns and, therefore, would not have hindered Thursday’s attack in any way.
Newtown Action Alliance pushed other gun controls as well, including gun storage requirements and laws. However, as it is still unknown how or where the 17-year-old acquired the guns used in the attack, it is unclear how any additional gun control would have helped.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010, a speaker at the 2023 Western Conservative Summit, and he holds a Ph.D. in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at
