Senator Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, held a question-and-answer session at Ames High School on Monday and encouraged students to ask him whatever they wanted.

“I want most of this time here spent by having you all ask me questions,” Grassley said.

Grassley spent a brief few minutes explaining his choice in location for today’s stop while the U.S. Senate is out of session this week.

“I make it a point to have one meeting in each county a year, but these town meetings are usually at a poor time for students to make it,” he said. “And I want to find out what is on your mind.”

After that, students proceeded to ask him questions concerning a multitude of subjects found in today’s news.

Kevin Arritt, junior, asked Grassley about his vote in favor of a law that Arritt said eliminated habeas corpus rights for Guantanamo detainees.

“There are really two kinds of habeas corpus; the constitutional habeas corpus, which no one can take away short of an amendment to the Constitution,” Grassley said. “Then there’s legislative habeas corpus, which is what you’re talking about, and which has never applied to enemy combatants.”

In Rasul v. Bush 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Guantanamo detainees do have the right to challenge their detention in federal court, rejecting the argument that enemy combatants don’t have habeas corpus rights. The Military Commissions Act of 2006 explicitly took away the habeas corpus rights of enemy combatants.

Grassley also talked about Guantanamo detainees who have been found eligible for transfer or release.

“We’ve let about half of them go, and for the rest, we haven’t been able to find a country that would take them back,” he said.

“We can’t just have them running around in Cuba . I wouldn’t even think of reparations at this point.”

After Guantanamo, the focus of discussion shifted to domestic issues. Grassley said he plans to support the leading GOP presidential candidate, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

“I would play almost any role he would ask of me,” Grassley said. “But so far, he hasn’t given me a role. But our philosophies aren’t too far apart.”

“I voted once for an amendment that would define marriage as between a man and a woman,” he said. “I’m saying we don’t need to defend an institution that has been clear cut over thousands of years.”

In perhaps the most timely question, Grassley was asked his opinion about school violence and what could be done to help prevent it.

“A lot of it is really locking the barn door after the horse is stolen,” Grassley said. “The Second Amendment is pretty important in this debate. The basic question is nobody denies the fact that people can have guns, but the word ‘militia’ confuses the question.”