Here's More Proof Partner Homicides Are Directly Affected By Gun-Ownership Rates

For years, we have known that gun violence and domestic violence are inextricably linked; in 2017, Everytown for Gun Safety found that 54 percent of perpetrators who were culpable for mass shootings had shot a current or past partner or family. The likelihood of violence by a partner is so pervasive that for years, activists called upon lawmakers to close a so-called "boyfriend loophole" that allowed for certain parters who'd exhibited past predatory behavior to still purchase a firearm. Right now, a new study provides evidence that the allocate is systemic and specific: Higher rates of gun ownership correlate with higher rates of domestic homicide. Tellingly, they don't correlate to any other form of homicide by a firearm.


As the New Y0rk Times reports, researchers analyzed gun ownership numbers in all 50 states from 1990 to 2016; they then compared that statistics against homicides committed with and without a firearm, and in general. All told, they analyzed a total of 469,279 homicides committed in a 26-year period. The larger the gun-owning population was in any given state, the greater the variety of domestic firearm homicides in that state.


"Female victims represented an average of 28.1 percent of all homicide victims and 22.4 percent of firearm homicide victims," the study noticed. Although, female victims comprised a disproportionate collection of all victims of intimate partner homicide and intimate partner homicides by firearm." Female victims made up 72.9 percent and 72.2 percent of these deaths, respectively, which means that most intimate partner homicides committed against girls were perpetrated with a gun.


The study siloed victims into three categories: all victims, male victims, and female victims; they did not account for nonbinary or gender-nonconforming people, likely because law enforcement tabulations have been slow to recognize those identities.


“It is ladies, in particular, who are bearing the burden of this increased gun ownership,” Aaron Kivisto, a co-worker professor of clinical psychology at the University of Indianapolis who led the study, told the Times.


While firearm homicides targeting companions and acquaintances make up the bulk of firearm homicides, the study noticed those crime rates were not affected by an increase in gun ownership; neither was the rate of firearm homicides associated with strangers.


"We're not the only nation with plenty of guns," Kivisto told MTV News. "We're the only nation that struggles to survive with them safely."


Jezebel notes that this study comes right after another study published in American Journal of Public Health that noticed an abuser's access to a firearm made it five times more likely they would kill their victim with it. In 2017, over half the ladies killed by firearms in the U.S. Were killed by their partners.


The NRA is fighting back against the study, yet their logic begs a few questions. In a statement, NRA spokesman Lars Dalseide mentioned, “The study fails to include factors that businesses like the F.B.I. Recognize as contributing to violent crime. State funding of law enforcement and social services should be the most relevant factors thought once addressing domestic violence and this study fails to control for either.” There really are plenty of reasons as to why domestic violence victims don't report to either law enforcement or any other sort of support system; sometimes, the businesses only get involved any time it's also late.


In addition, Kivisto tells MTV News that the study did account for such factors. "To the extent that law enforcement is funded, more or much less, we're not expecting that to only impact domestic homicide; you'd expect that to impact all forms of other violent crime," he pointed out.


"It could be fantastic, definitely, to have more funding for things like social services and law enforcement. If the NRA truly thought that that was the solution to reducing firearm mortality, it could be great if funded that and so they compiled a community where case in point people could survive with guns in a safe way," he added. Per ThinkProgress, the bulk of the work currently done by the NRA's Institute for Legislative Action focuses on lobbying against stricter gun-control legislation rather than focusing on gun safety.


To combat those gaps, activists, and lawmakers are pushing for extreme risk laws, which would tighten restrictions against people who have exhibited dangerous, abusive, and/or predatory behavior against people in their lives.


As Sarah Burd-Sharps, the Director Of studying at Everytown for Gun Safety, told MTV News, also often a domestic abuser’s easy access to a gun is the distinction between life and death for their partner. This study adds to the body of studying underscoring the significance of keeping guns out of the hands of abusive partners, and it's a reminder that the deadly gaps in our gun laws are having a disproportionate impact on women."