Guns and Intimate Violence

When guns make the news, it’s often because of mass shootings. These stories, as well as research on mass shootings, are incredibly important and warrant our attention and action. Behind those headlines, though, guns are connected to intimate violence in some surprising ways—ways that also need our attention.

To Coerce and Control

When guns make the news or capture our attention, it’s often because a gun has already been fired—in a mass shooting, a death by suicide, or both. Long before guns are fired, though, they can be used to coerce and control intimate partners in abusive relationships. While it’s hard to say precisely how many people have been threatened with the use of guns in abusive relationships, national estimates suggest the number is in the millions.

In some sense, this shouldn’t be surprising. After all, a central dynamic in intimate violence is coercion and control. The threat of pulling out or using a gun, then, can be a tactic that one partner uses to coerce and control another. That’s what domestic violence researchers Kellie Lynch and T. K. Logan found when they asked more than 40 women about their abusive partners’ use of guns. In interview after interview, women explained that abusive partners used guns to threaten and maintain power in the relationship. As one woman interviewed described, “If you’ve got a gun pointed at you and he’s telling you you’re going to do this or else, chances are you’re going to do it. And he knows that.” Another woman interviewed described that verbal threats aren’t even necessary when a gun is present because the threat that he is going to use the gun on you is there “at any time.”

These descriptions are mirrored in data on police reports of domestic violence. For example, one research study carefully examined more than 35,000 domestic violence police reports in a large city. The results showed that more than 500 reports documented evidence that abusive partners used guns to threaten or intimidate their victims, often in the absence of physical aggression or injuries. Victims of the incidents with guns were less likely to have been physically injured; however, they were more likely to be afraid.

Taken together, these studies show that guns play a role in intimate violence, even when the gun isn’t fired—a problem that is easy to miss and one that has serious implications for health. After all, fear plays a role in serious mental health consequences of abuse, such as post-traumatic stress disorder.

The Availability of Guns

When we think about guns and crime, lots of us probably think about illegal guns. However, the majority of shootings were perpetrated by legally acquired guns, according to data compiled by the National Institute of Justice.

Those data suggest it’s important for us to pay attention to legally-available guns. And when we do, we find some important links to domestic violence. Using different kinds of methods, researchers have discovered that gun availability is linked to intimate partner homicides. For instance, research documents that women were more likely to be murdered by someone they knew if they lived in states with greater proportions of gun owners. Another study that looked at data from 286 U.S. cities discovered that the number of intimate partner homicides was linked with the number of federally licensed firearm dealers: In communities with more legal gun dealers, there were more intimate partner homicides, even when the research took into account the availability of illegal guns.

Taking Action

The information in this post is adapted from a longer discussion of the links between guns and intimate violence in Every 90 Seconds: Our Common Cause Ending Violence against Women. The problems of gun violence and intimate violence can both feel overwhelming to address, particularly when we treat them as separate problems. When we recognize their intersections though, we just may discover new ways to work together to develop creative solutions in our communities.