Supreme Court Gets It Right on Domestic Abusers and Guns
First aired on The Stephanie Miller Show July 12, 2011
The Supreme Court ruled in a decision announced Monday that a reckless domestic assault qualifies as a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence, and therefore bars individuals from owning or buying guns under federal law.
And thank goodness they did. Sure, lots of gun fetishists say that it is pointless to restrict gun ownership to prevent homicides because people will just use other weapons. But research has shown that the mere presence of a gun in a household with domestic abuse greatly increases the chances that a situation will result in a death. And not just some small percentage increases, but hefty increases such as 300% (as compared with blades) or 2,340% (as compared to attacks with other objects including fists).
RESULTS:
Firearm-associated family and intimate assaults (FIAs) were 3.0 times (95% confidence interval, 0.9 to 10.0) more likely to result in death than FIAs involving knives or other cutting instruments and 23.4 times (95% confidence interval, 7.0 to 78.6) more likely to result in death than FIAs involving other weapons or bodily force. Overall, firearm-associated FIAs were 12.0 times (95% confidence interval, 4.6 to 31.5) more likely to result in death than non-firearm-associated FIAs.
I’m glad that the NIH is able to conduct such research. We need facts and science to guide our public policies.
( BTW, Republicans have been fighting conducting this kind of research which they deem “propaganda”. But that’s another story…)