Having a Gun in the House Doesn't Make a Woman Safer

A father takes his 14-year-old daughter shopping at a gun show in Houston. (Reuters)

The Atlantic

Another large case-control study compared women who were murdered by their intimate partner with a control group of battered women. Only 16 percent of the women who had been abused, but not murdered, had guns in their homes, whereas 51 percent of the murder victims did. In fact, not a single study to date has shown that the risk of any crime including burglary, robbery, home invasion, or spousal abuse against a female is decreased through gun ownership. Though there are examples of women using a gun to defend themselves, they are few and far between, and not statistically significant.

These facts should be as chilling to men as they are to women. A 2005 studyexamining mortality data from 1998-2000 found that when a female was shot by her intimate partner, the perpetrator subsequently killed himself in two thirds of the cases. This statistic not only shows necessity of getting mental help for at-risk men. It also further suggests that owning a firearm may make a household more vulnerable than ever.  

Texas Man Shoots the ex-Wife and Kills Himself

Local news reports

A man apparently shot and wounded his ex-wife inside her Pearland home Wednesday before fatally shooting himself, authorities said.

Brazoria County Sheriff's deputies responding to a shooting found the two about 3 p.m. at her home in the 2400 block of Woodbury.

The man was dead and his estranged wife was taken by Life Flight helicopter to Memorial Hermann Hospital. Her condition wasn't known Wednesday night but deputies said she was still alive.

Detectives said the case remains under investigation and they have not officially confirmed a possible motive. But, they believe it was an attempted murder-suicide. There were no signs of forced entry into the woman's home and the estranged couple was found together with a weapon.

Nice Christmas decorations. I imagine he did them, but then when it all got to be too much for him, he took out the gun. 

Of course the meticulous record-keeping by the state of Texas will ensure that if the dead gun owner had had a concealed carry license that fact is recorded. They wouldn't want any anomalies or omissions in their statistics.

Guns Aren't the Answer to Domestic Violence

Huffington Post

That year (2011) there were 1,707 females murdered by males in America in single victim/single offender incidents. Ninety-four percent of these women were murdered by a male they knew.

Among the victims who knew their offenders, 61 percent were wives or intimate acquaintances. (This percentage could well be higher, because ex-girlfriends are not included in the statistics.) Nearly all the homicides (87 percent) were not related to the commission of any other felony, such as rape or robbery.

When it comes to guns and women, firearms are being used to take women's lives, not defend them. In the study, we found that more homicides were committed with firearms (51 percent) than any other weapon, and of those, 73 percent were committed with handguns. Nine women are shot to death by their husbands or intimate partners every week.

It's cynically logical that the National Rifle Association, which receives tens of millions of dollars from gun manufacturers, including money for marketing guns to women, would try to persuade women that buying a firearm guarantees personal safety. But having a gun in the home actually increases the chance that a woman will be killed. One study found that females living with a gun in the home were nearly three times more likely to be murdered than those without one.

The FBI data also reveals that guns are rarely used to kill criminals or stop crimes. In 2011, there were only 261 justifiable homicides committed by private citizens. Only 31 of these cases involved women killing men. And of those, only 14 involved a handgun.

Our report shows that lethal attacks by men on women are widespread across America, but it also highlights the states where it occurs at the highest rates. We ranked the top 10 states for the rate of females murdered by males, with South Carolina at the top.