29 Firearms

Guns and domestic violence are a lethal combination – injuring and killing women every day in the United States. A gun is the weapon most commonly used in domestic homicides. In fact, more than three times as many women are murdered by guns used by their husbands or intimate acquaintances than are killed by strangers’ guns, knives or other weapons combined. ⁱ Contrary to many public perceptions, many women who are murdered are killed not by strangers but by men they know.

• Nearly one-third of all women murdered in the United States in recent years were murdered by a current or former intimate partner. In 2000, 1,247 women, more than three a day, were killed by their intimate partners. ⁱⁱ
• Of females killed with a firearm, almost two-thirds of were killed by their intimate partners. ^.iii
• Access to firearms increases the risk of intimate partner homicide more than five times more than in instances where there are no weapons, according to a recent study. In addition, abusers who possess guns tend to inflict the most severe abuse on their partners. ^iv
• In 2002, 54 percent of female homicide victims were shot and killed with a gun.
• Handguns are more likely than rifles or shotguns to be used in homicides in which men kill women. In 2002, handguns were used in 73 percent of cases where men used firearms to kill women.^v
• In homicides where males use firearms to kill women, handguns are the most commonly used weapon, over rifles and shotguns. Seventy-three percent of all female were killed with a handgun^vi
• In 1998, for every one woman who used a handgun to kill an intimate acquaintance in self- defense, 83 women were murdered by an intimate acquaintance using a handgun. ^vii
• A study of women physically abused by current or former intimate partners found a five-fold increased risk of the partner murdering the woman when the partner owned a gun. ^viii
• Domestic violence misdemeanor convictions and restraining orders were the second most common reason for denials of handgun purchase applications between 1994 and 1998.^ix
• From 1998 to 2001, more than 2,800 people with misdemeanor domestic violence convictions were able to purchase guns without being identified by the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. ^x