Years ago, I worked at a domestic violence shelter in Rhode Island. I watched mothers come in, bruised and bloodied, clutching their small children. Many of them left their homes and sought refuge in the shelter when they found out that their husbands or intimate partners had just purchased a gun. They knew, they would tell me in whispered voices, that his possession of a gun would turn the abuse into a death sentence.
Unfortunately, the research proves those mothers correct. The presence of a gun in domestic violence situations increases the risk of homicide by 500 percent. And, just as disturbing, is the statistic that half of the women murdered with guns in the U.S. in 2010 were killed at the hands of their intimate partners.
As President Obama crisscrosses the country pleading for gun safety and the Senate prepares to vote on gun legislation post-Newtown this week, those of us who are domestic violence survivors, allies, and advocates cannot be silent. There is an undeniable connection between saving women's lives from violence and gun safety.
Right now, abusers with certain restraining orders against them, or convicted of certain domestic violence misdemeanors, are prohibited from being able to purchase or possess guns. In fact, the National Instant Criminal Background Checks System (NICS), which is responsible for conducting background checks on potential gun buyers, has blocked more than 2 million attempted gun sales to prohibited purchasers. How many mothers and their children are still alive because of that prohibition -- and how many women were given the chance to escape their abusers and seek better lives because the abuse never took the form of a bullet cutting them down?
But here is the problem: an abuser can still purchase a gun from unlicensed, private sellers. Like at a gun show, or with the simple click of a mouse to an online site like Armslist.com.
Fortunately, some states have decided to protect women's lives by requiring a background check for every sale of a gun, including private sales. Not surprisingly, 38 percent fewer women are shot to death by their intimate partners in those states.
Those of us who work so hard to keep women and girls safe from violence must lift up the intersection between women's safety and gun safety. We are the ones who successfully achieved bipartisan support to address violence against women and girls through the recent passage of VAWA. Our next endeavor is now joining our voices to the larger chorus of parents, cops, and faith leaders, to urge for universal background checks. Because that is part of how we save the lives of abused women, mothers, and their children.