Guns and Domestic Violence

from our friends at Mayors Against Illegal Guns

Domestic violence survivors and advocates from across the country will come together on Wednesday, October 30 in Washington, DC to urge Congress to pass common-sense gun law reforms that will save women’s lives.   Their fly-in marks the end of Domestic Violence Awareness Month and efforts to highlight the life-or-death role of guns in domestic violence:

• On average, 46 American women are shot to death each month by current or former intimate partners. 

• The presence of a gun in a domestic violence situation makes it five times more likely that the woman will be killed.   

• Over the past 25 years, more intimate partner homicides in the U.S. have been committed with guns than with all other weapons combined.  

• In 2011, 44% of women murdered with guns in the U.S. were killed by current or former intimate partners. 

• More than half of mass shootings involve domestic violence.  In at least 57% of the mass shootings between January 2009 and September 2013, the shooter killed a current or former intimate partner or family member. 

• Women in the U.S. are 11 times more likely to be murdered with guns than women in other high-income countries.  

• In states that require background checks for all handgun sales, there are 38% fewer women murdered by intimate partners. 

One of the speakers will be a Pennsylvania woman whose estranged husband shot her and killed their two-year old son.