When a domestic abuser owns a gun, their partner is five times more likely to be killed than if the abuser didn’t own a firearm, and more than half of all domestic partner killings are committed with a firearm. A woman is killed by her intimate partner with a gun every 14 hours in this country.
These statistics should appall us all — and they demonstrate why it has been widely accepted, across the political spectrum, that domestic abusers should not have access to guns. But in a ruling earlier this month, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit made domestic violence survivors in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas more vulnerable to continued violence — and opened the door for possible consequences to survivors nationwide.
By studying past events, public safety experts and law enforcement agencies have identified clear behaviors exhibited by people who present a risk of engaging in acts of violence. These warnings or “red flags” often include noticeable changes to the shooter’s attitude or behavior, out-of-character fights, or “leakage” — when shooters share their plan to commit violence with others. We also know that probable targets include vulnerable individuals and groups, perpetuating — and worsening — dangerous inequities and tragedy.
This is why Congress has taken concrete and directed action to protect survivors of domestic abuse from the increased lethality that accompanies their abusers possessing firearms.
While the United States has long had laws that prevent those convicted of domestic violence felonies from possessing a firearm, these convictions often take years to secure — if they are even pursued and won. Recognizing the danger that survivors of domestic abuse experience even without these trials and convictions, Congress passed The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act in 1994 that, among other provisions, bars those with domestic abuse restraining orders from possessing firearms.
These restraining orders can be issued in civil court when a judge has determined that an individual presents a credible threat to the physical safety of their partner. The ban on possessing a firearm is in place until the restraining order is lifted.
In passing this legislation with bipartisan support in the House and Senate — including from Second Amendment enthusiasts — Congress made clear it will protect domestic violence victims.
Recently, however, the Fifth Circuit Court ruled that a civil restraining order alone is insufficient grounds for the government to deny a person the right to own firearms, siding with domestic abusers over survivors and victims. In doing so, the judges rejected the government’s argument that the 1994 law was in line with our country’s historical prohibition of certain dangerous individuals owning firearms.
This decision also fails to adequately recognize the nearly 20 people per minute who are physically abused by an intimate partner. By drawing alarming parallels between these real threats and other innocuous, hypothetical situations, the panel utterly disrespected survivors, victims, and their families, and the real danger they face. In its decision, the court asked: “Could speeders be stripped of their right to keep and bear arms? Political nonconformists? People who do not recycle or drive an electric vehicle?”
These questions are an insult to every domestic violence victim and survivor in the United States. One in four women and one in nine men have experienced severe forms of physical intimate partner violence and understand what it feels like to live in true fear for their safety — especially when their abuser has a firearm.
It defies logic to equate abusers’ actions to driving a gas vehicle or not recycling their plastic bottles. The parallel is ludicrous, insulting, and dangerous.
Those who have put others’ lives at risk and who have already exhibited dangerous behavior should not be trusted to possess a firearm.
US laws cannot allow domestic abusers to possess the weapons that make their abuse even more likely and more deadly.
David Cicilline is a Democratic US representative from Rhode Island.