XPost: alt.christnet.christianlife, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, sac.politics
XPost: talk.politics.guns

Preventing Gun Violence

https://www.ywca.org/advocacy/advocacy-agenda/preventing-gun-violence

YWCA is committed to ensuring that communities are safe places for women
and girls to thrive. As headlines and research make clear, however, gun violence is a major threat to their health and safety. From the hallways
of Stoneman Douglas High School and Sandy Hook Elementary, to the social
venues of the Las Vegas country music festival and the Pulse nightclub, to homes and communities across the country, women experience unacceptably
high levels of gun violence that leave them at heightened risk of harm and death.

Women’s experiences of gun violence are inextricably linked to domestic violence. Some 4.5 million women in the U.S. have been threatened with a
gun by an intimate partner, and nearly 1 million women alive today have
been shot, or shot at, by an intimate partner. In an average month, 50
women in the U.S. are shot to death by intimate partners, and many more
are injured. The presence of a gun in a domestic violence situation makes
it five times more likely that a woman will be killed.

Gun violence is particularly dangerous for women of color, who are nearly
three times as likely to be murdered with a gun than white women. Black
women are shot and killed by a husband or intimate partner three times
more often than by male strangers, and most often during the course of an argument. Transgender women of color face an even higher increased risk of
gun violence: transgender women are four times more likely to experience
gun violence than cisgender women, and nearly 85 percent of transgender
victims are women of color.

The connections between domestic violence and mass shootings are alarming.
Most mass shootings in the U.S. — those in which four or more individuals
are killed — are related to domestic violence: shooters killed intimate partners or other family members in at least 54 percent of mass shootings. While women make up only 15 percent of all gun violence, they make up 50 percent of victims in mass shootings, largely due to the correlation
between intimate partner violence and mass shootings. Even when strangers
are targeted instead of family members, there are connections between mass shootings and domestic violence: while most mass shootings occur in the
home, the shooters in one third of the 46 mass shootings that took place entirely in public between 2009 and 2016 had a history of violence against women. Moreover, in 42 percent of mass shootings between 2009 and 2016,
the shooter exhibited warning signs that they posed a danger to themselves
or others, and one-third of mass shooters were prohibited from possessing
a firearm.

The significant links between mass shootings and intimate partner
violence, and the disparate impacts of gun violence on women of color, are
too often overlooked in the public narrative about gun violence. So, too,
are the impacts of school shootings on girls of color. Like all students,
youth of color face the increasing risk of school shootings. Frequently,
when young people are the shooters in school settings they have obtained firearms at home, likely because an adult did not store it locked and
unloaded. However, it is primarily students of color who face the negative impacts of heightened school surveillance and security measures that have
been implemented in response to school shootings. Such measures have not
been applied equally across all schools, and schools with a preponderance
of students of color are more likely to adopt strict surveillance and
security measures which can further criminalize girls of color who already experience disproportionate punishment in school.

YWCA position
YWCA believes that all women and girls deserve to live free from the
threat of gun violence. To this end, we support systemic and structural
policy changes that focus attention and resources on the places, spaces,
and contexts in which women and girls—particularly women and girls of color—experience significant threats from gun violence: in their homes, as victims and survivors of intimate partner violence; in mass shootings,
which are most often perpetrated by those with a history of domestic
violence; and at school, where students of color both face the threat of
school shootings and bear the brunt of harsh school surveillance and
security measures.

Policy Recommendations
To decrease gun violence for women and girls, particularly women and girls
of color, YWCA USA endorses the following policy responses:

Keep guns out of the hands of perpetrators of domestic violence, stalking,
and other intimate partner violence

Prohibit those convicted of domestic violence and stalking from obtaining firearms, as well as those subject to domestic violence, sexual assault,
and stalking restraining orders

Ensure that abusers and stalkers subject to a restraining order relinquish
all firearms once they are prohibited

Establish mandatory licensing requirements, so that law enforcement and
courts can more effectively identify when abusers and stalkers have
firearms that should be confiscated

Oppose “concealed carry reciprocity” legislation, which would enable
abusers to carry firearms across state lines into states that prohibit “concealed carry”

Eliminate access to automatic weapons and high capacity ammunition

Ban the sale and possession of assault weapons, high capacity gun
magazines (those with a capacity of more than 10 bullets), and bump stocks

More tightly enforce laws on straw purchases of weapons, and limits on how
many guns can be purchased in a month

The cowardice goes on and on.

https://www.ywca.org/advocacy/advocacy-agenda/preventing-gun-violence

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