Page 8
News
Street Roots • April 7-13, 2017
loo
Addressing a
link between
guns and
domestic
violence,
Oregon
lawmakers
will consider
tightening a
law that now
gives some
abusers access
to firearms
BY SARAH HANSELL
S T A F F W R IT E R
arsen thought she
was going to visit an
old friend she hadn’t
seen in 25 years, then leave
for home in a couple of weeks.
She arrived in the small town where
he lived in April, but it wasn’t until August
that she finally managed to escape.
The first show of violence was a slap in the
middle of an argument. Carsen said she
planned to leave after that.
Only he wouldn’t let her leave. He wouldn’t
allow her to go to the bathroom alone, much
less leave the house without him. He starved
her, beat her at the slightest provocation.
He isolated her completely. He wouldn’t
allow her to call her mother or her four adult
children, who were looking for her. He made
her hide when police officers came to the
door, and she was too scared to make a sound.
“I never expected it to happen to me,” she
said. “It’s something you would see on TV. I
never expected to take the beatings. And even
himself, my abuser, he told me one night, ‘I
don’t see how you’re still standing.’”
He used many different tools to inflict
abuse on her. One of them was a gun. He shot
at her multiple times and threatened her by
saying he would find her children and use the
gun against them.
Unknown to Carsen, her abuser had been
convicted of domestic violence before and had
served time for it. Yet he still had a gun that
made it even easier for him to threaten her
life and the lives of those she loved.
This legislative session, Gov. Kate Brown
has introduced the “Oregonians United to End
Gun Violence” bill, which, if passed, would
make it more difficult for abusers to access
firearms.
This bill would close the “Boyfriend
Loophole.” Currently, domestic abusers are
prohibited from purchasing or owning a
firearm only if they have a legal relationship
with the person whom they are abusing — that
is, if they are married, have a child together,
or have cohabited. Closing this loophole would
expand the law to protect victims of domestic
violence whose relationship does not fit those
criteria.
The bill would direct the Oregon Health
Authority to issue annual gun death reports
and make policy recommendations, as well as
create a work group to report to the governor
on counties’ existing gun relinquishment
protocols in order to make recommendations
on statewide policy to further protect
domestic violence survivors. Both of these
pieces are efforts to identify and fill gaps in
the state’s protection of survivors.
C
Guns and domestic violence
Many women who have experienced
domestic abuse, like Carsen, have lived in fear
because of the presence of a gun in their
home.
Statistically,
Carsen’s risk of
death while with her
abuser was five times higher
simply because he possessed a
firearm, according to Everytown for Gun
Safety, a pro-gun-control nonprofit. This is
something Sgt. Ronald Mason of the Portland
Police Bureau’s Domestic Violence Reduction
Unit has seen in Portland cases of domestic
violence.
“Anecdotally, just having the access to a
firearm when an offender is in an aggressive
violent state, it gives them another option of
increasing the violence and making bad
choices into horrible choices within seconds,”
Mason said. “Them having access to that
firearm when they are a domestic violence
offender anyway does make it a lot more
dangerous of a situation for the victim.”
There could be multiple reasons for this,
said Eric Mankowski, a professor of social and
community psychology at Portland State
University. One could be that those
predisposed to be abusive are purchasing
guns at higher rates. Research in social
psychology suggests another reason could be
that the mere presence of the gun escalates
conflicts to violence.
“It is thought to be like a cue, we call it, a
reminder or an elicitor of violence, that
weapons are associated with. I see a gun on a
table or a knife on a table - it’s a threat, and
acts of violence come to mind,” Mankowski
said. “So guns could be both a cause and a
consequence of intimate partner violence at
home.”
Carsen’s abuser always kept his gun tucked
into his overalls.
“He always made it known that he had a
gun at all times with him,” Carsen said.
Whether a woman is experiencing extreme
physical abuse like Carsen or the abuse is
strictly emotional and verbal, a gun in the
home sends a powerful message to an abused
partner, whether intentional or not.
“A common reason people own guns is that
it makes them feel safe,” said Chris Huffine,
the executive director of Allies in Change, an
organization that counsels abusers and their
partners. “So if I’m a gun owner, I may never
ever use that gun, except in practice. But just
knowing it’s in my nightstand helps me feel
safer. If you’re in an abusive home, knowing
there’s a gun on the premises, just knowing
it’s there, can make you feel unsafe. It’s the
exact opposite.”
Mass shootings
Researchers are also beginning to study the
link between mass shootings and domestic
violence. Mass shootings in public places like
schools are prominently featured in the
media, which could give people the notion
that no one is safe, that a shooter could be
lurking in every corner, and that they prey on
the most vulnerable places. In reality,
according to a 2014 Everytown study on mass
shootings, only 4 percent of shootings
occurred in schools.
“The other effect of this mass media
coverage of shootings is, ‘Oh, the world is a
dangerous place; I have to stay in my home,”’
Mankowski said. “And I think for a long time,
we’ve been understanding that that narrative
is incorrect, and you’re more likely to be
sexually assaulted, physically assaulted,
lethally assaulted by an acquaintance and,
specifically for women, by a current or former
intimate partner.”
According to the Everytown study, 70
percent of mass shootings - meaning at least
four people were killed with a gun - occurred
in wholly private residences, and in more than
half, the shooter killed a current or former
intimate partner. Fifteen percent of mass
shooters had a former domestic violence
charge.
Although few domestic violence abusers
will commit mass shootings, these statistics
show a consistent link that is often
overshadowed by more sensational events.
We have also seen example after example
of public mass shootings by men with a
history of domestic violence allegations, from
Omar Mateen at the Pulse nightclub in
Florida, to Micah Johnson, who killed five
police officers, to Robert Dear, who attacked a
Planned Parenthood office in Colorado
Springs, Colo.
“We’ve been thinking about domestic
violence and then these mass shootings, and
it’s looking more and more like there’s a
bigger intersection there than we had
previously understood, and guns may be a
linkage there, an important linkage,”
Mankowski said. “Obviously we’re talking
about shootings; they’re going to be present.
But we know that the possession or