Domestic Violence and Firearm Relinquishment: Closing the Fatal Chasm between Federal Law and State Enforcement
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THE CRIMINAL LAW PRACTITIONER
VOLUML XIII, ISSUL I
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND FIREARM RELINQUISHMENT WOO
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND FIREARM
RELINQUISHMENT: CLOSING THE FATAL CHASM
BETWEEN FEDERAL LAW AND STATE ENFORCEMENT
BY DANIELLE M. Woo
INTRODUCTION
Verbal and emotional abuse became a daily occurrence. When Katie would try to talk to her husband
about what she needed from the marriage-like time together arguments always followed... .
At one point, he forbade her from using the word needs .... One morning when it all became
too much, Katie decided to contact a divorce attorney. Her husband overheard the phone call and
stormed into the kitchen holding a loaded revolver to his head, threatening to kill himself if she left.
Then, he turned the gun on Katie.'
In the United States, 1 in 3 female murder victims and 1 in 20 male murder victims
are killed by intimate partners.2 Around 4.5 million women in the United States have
been threatened with a firearm, and nearly one million women have been shot at by an
intimate partner.' It should not come as a surprise that the presence of a gun within a
domestic violence (DV)4 situation statistically raises the risk of homicide for women by
500%. Coercion and control are primary tools that abusers use to maintain power over
their victims; weapons, namely guns, only serve to exacerbate this dynamic.'
Julia Garlich, Lost in the Fight: As Gun Laws Expand in MO., Domestic Violence Victims Pay the Price, COLUMBIA
MISSOURIAN (May 2, 2021), https://www.columbiamissourian.com/news/local/lost-in-the-fight-as-gun-rights-expand-
in-mo-domestic-violence-victims-pay-the/article_b25c76d4-a94b-11 eb-9a89-eb1cbb4798f4.html.
2 NAT. COAL. AGAINST DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, GUNS & DOMESTIC VIOLENCE 1 (2013) (citing F. Stephen Bridges et al.,
Domestic Violence Statutes and Rates ofIntimate Partner and Family Homicide: A Research Note, 19 CRIM. JUSTICE
POL'Y REv. 117 (2008)), https://assets.speakcdn.com/assets/2497/gunsanddv0.pdf.
3 Lisa B. Geller et al., The Role of Domestic Violence in Fatal Mass Shootings in the United States, 2014-2019, INJURY
EPIDEMIOLOGY, 1 (2021) https://doi.org/10.1186/s40621-021-00330-0.
4 The term domestic violence (DV) is commonly used interchangeably with intimate partner violence (IPV). This
Article, however, will use DV as an umbrella term as it can also encompass child and elder abuse, or abuse by any
member of a household while IPV more specifically refers to abuse within partnerships between two people who
are or were involved in an intimate relationship. See CLAUDIA GARCIA-MORENO, ALESSANDRA GUEDES & WENDY KNERR,
WORLD HEALTH ORG., Intimate Partner Violence, in UNDERSTANDING AND ADDRESSING VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN 2 n.1
(2012).
s Domestic Violence and Firearms: A Lethal Combination, COLO. COAL. AGAINST DOMESTIC VIOLENCE 1 (2013), https://
www.violencefreecolorado.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/DV-and-Firearms-handout.pdf [https://perma.cc/
VM7K-ARXP].
6 Domestic Violence, NAT. COAL. AGAINST DOMESTIC VIOLENCE (2020), https://assets.speakcdn.com/assets/2497/do-
mestic_violence-2020080709350855.pdf?1596811079991 (Domestic violence is the willful intimidation, physical
assault, battery, sexual assault, and/or other abusive behavior as part of a systematic pattern of power and control
perpetrated by one intimate partner against another. It includes physical violence, sexual violence, threats, economic,
and emotional/psychological abuse. The frequency and severity of domestic violence varies dramatically.).
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND FIREARM RELINQUISHMENT 1 27](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/crilp13&div=7&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Domestic Violence and Firearm Relinquishment: Closing the Fatal Chasm between Federal Law and State Enforcement
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