PHOTO BY NICK BAUR U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-Iowa) speaks with students Sia Bear, Davion Pushetonequa and Sophie Snow during her visit to the Meskwaki Settlement Schools on Monday morning.

Republican Congresswoman Ashley Hinson’s district county tour found its way to Tama on Monday morning when she met with students and administration at the Meskwaki Settlement Schools.

As the only federally recognized Native American tribe in Iowa, Hinson indicated Monday’s visit was primarily a fact finding mission for the two term representative to see how the settlement educates their community, and she drew special attention to recently implemented programs like a locally-grown produce initiative and the integration of computer coding into the curriculum.

“I wanted to see, number one, at the settlement here, how they’re doing education differently,” Hinson said. “Their emphasis on farm to table, how important that is, and hearing more about how they’re instilling coding and teaching by inserting that into their curriculum. That’s really great to hear because I think that there’s a lot of implications there for success in the future.”

While Hinson toured the building, she spoke with administrators and students about the school, and she added that the visit reinforced the need to continue to foster additional educational opportunities.

“I think that making sure the tribe has the resources it needs to continue to operate and educate students here is going to be critical,” Hinson said. “It’s why I’ve chosen to prioritize specific community project funding requests for the settlement because I understand how important helping support and knowing what’s happening here so I can be a better policymaker in Washington, DC. Frequently, issues come up that impact tribes and tribal settlements, and so I need to know everything I can, so I have the right context to make good decisions in DC.”

Yet, Monday’s visit was shadowed by another high-profile mass shooting on Saturday which took place in Allen, Texas, where eight people were killed and seven were wounded at an outdoor shopping center.

The attack became the country’s 22nd mass killing of 2023, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University.

It came on the heels of two other mass shootings just a week before in Henryetta, Okla. on April 28 and Cleveland, Texas on April 30, where six people and five people were killed, respectively.

With continued calls from Democratic legislators and, according to most polls, a majority of the American citizenry to enact more robust regulations regarding the possession of firearms, on Monday, Hinson was tepid in response to questioning about the possibility of bipartisan gun control measures being passed in Congress.

“I wish we could legislate away hate, but we can’t do that,” she said. “So what we can do is focus on making sure that we have good laws that don’t override people’s Constitutional rights, which is my biggest concern.”

Instead, Hinson pointed towards measures her office had introduced in the House of Representatives to streamline the police response in crisis situations and stressed her desire to protect the Constitutional rights of gun owners.

“We need to make sure that our law enforcement have the tools necessary to better communicate with each other,” Hinson said. “I know that that’s an area where we’ve tried to provide some meaningful options to help make sure our communities are safer without compromising people’s Second Amendment rights, which I think is doable.”