Hello,

My opponent Chuck Grassley recently told voters at a town hall that he doesn’t “know much about guns.” He said he hasn’t shot one in twenty, forty, or even fifty years. But he won’t support any new federal gun laws.

As a three-star admiral who served 36 years in the U.S. Navy, I do know quite a bit about guns... and I can tell you unequivocally that firearms like the AR-15 are weapons of war.

Senator Grassley, you've taken hundreds of thousands of dollars from the gun lobby. Just a few weeks ago, they named you Legislator of the Year. Because two days after 4 more kids were murdered in Oxford, Michigan, you stood up in the Senate and you blocked a bill requiring universal background checks.

You have no idea what an assault rifle is capable of. How powerful it is. How deadly accurate it is. What it does to a body. Yet you think any 18 year old should be able to walk into a gun show and buy one from a private seller, no questions asked.

Here’s my challenge to Senator Chuck Grassley: Come to a gun range with me.

Pull the trigger of an AR-15. Feel the power. Watch what it does to a hard cantaloupe. See how fast you can shoot 30 rounds and load another 30-round magazine with just a bit of practice.

See how it shoots through doors, most body armor, even plaster walls. How that little itsy bullet flies along without a conscience for over a mile… and if your sight isn’t faulty, will kill a person accurately from 800 yards away.

Then tell me you don't agree with 90% of Americans that Congress needs to pass responsible gun ownership laws so we can finally stop these mass killings.

I know these guns. I know why they don't belong in our communities. And before Chuck Grassley once again blocks a bill requiring even just a background check to buy one, he needs to see for himself what they’re capable of.

Just name the time and place. I'll be there.

Mike Franken, U.S. Navy (ret.)