No type of domestic abuse is all right, but it’s inarguable that there are degrees of severity. There remains one constant regarding the heightened risk of getting killed by your intimate partner, and that’s having a firearm present.
In fact, findings from a Danger Assessment research study determined that wives and girlfriends of men who assaulted them with a firearm or threatened to do so, had a 20 times greater risk of being murdered. Simply keeping a firearm in a home where domestic abuse is already a problem increases the risk of getting murdered by six even among other abused women living without a gun in the home.
Below are some scary statistics about guns and domestic abuse.
- Guns were the preferred method for men murdering women in 2011, having been used to kill in just over half of the cases.
- In domestic abuse homicides, guns are the go-to weapon for the women’s killers to use.
- Of all the women killed by a gun in 2011, almost two-thirds of them were murdered by male domestic partners.
- In the 28 years between 1980-2008, more than two-thirds of women who died at the hands of husbands or exes were killed by guns.
If you have been living in a dangerously abusive domestic relationship — whether you are married or not — if he is a firearm owner, you are in grave danger. You should immediately take the necessary steps to secure your safety and that of your children. Emergency protective orders issued by the court can place some legal consequences on your abuser should he violate the court order.
Source: National Resource Center on Domestic Violence, “What is the connection between firearms and domestic violence homicides?,” accessed Dec. 22, 2017