WASHINGTON – With Domestic Violence Awareness month drawing to a close, activists are still pushing to reduce the number of victims killed as a result of handgun violence in domestic disputes.
Senators, U.S. House members, advocates and survivors gathered on Capitol Hill Wednesday to call on Congress to pass expanded background checks on gun purchases with the goal of ultimately saving women’s lives.
“Domestic Violence is an epidemic that we need to conquer… there needs to be a permanent restriction on guns in the house,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.
On average, 46 American women are shot to death each month in the United States by current or former intimate partners – and in many instances, domestic abusers acquire these weapons outside of the law – this according to Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Wis.
Taking a different approach, former professional boxer and survivor of domestic violence, Christy Salters Martin, argued that arming women as a defense measure will not reduce the number of domestic violence gun-shot fatalities.
Martin and her estranged husband both had concealed carry permits and owned their own guns — but owning a gun wasn’t enough to protect her. Martin said she was stabbed and shot with her own firearm after she attempted to leave her husband.
“[The woman’s] male counterpart or spouse can easily overpower them and take the gun away,” said Martin.
Statistical findings support her claim: Abusers who have access to a gun in a domestic violence situation are five times more likely to kill their partners, Mayors Against Illegal Guns has reported.
Those bound by a permanent restraining order are unable to purchase a gun under the existing background check law, but Blumenthal said there is a loophole in the federal statute. Abusers – bound only by a “temporary” restraining order — are still able to buy or own a gun in most states.
The Domestic Violence Survivor Protection Act, proposed by Blumenthal and Rep. Chris Murphy, D-Conn, would prevent abusers with temporary restraining orders from buying guns.
Enforcing background checks has already affected change in some states. The Department of Justice says there are 38 percent fewer women per year murdered by an intimate partner in states that require background checks for all handgun sales.
But efforts to close gun law loopholes have been unsuccessful in the past – even after the Sandy Hook school shootings last year in Connecticut. Those failures are bound to draw skepticism as to how Blumenthal’s bill will gain the necessary traction to make it to the Senate floor.
“We can’t offer a reaction until we see the proposal,” said David Workman, communications director for the pro-gun rights Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. “It’s the same goal but always with a different argument or reason,” he added.
Rep. Moore said said the gun control side won’t give up. “We will speak out loudly for women who no longer have a voice of their own,” she said.