Confronting the Deadly Intersection of Domestic Abuse and Gun Violence
Jun 03, 2024
Genesis Women's Shelter
Immerse yourself in a critical discussion with Attorney Jennifer Becker of the Battered Women's Justice Project as we confront the dire consequences of gun violence within intimate partner relationships. Imagine the threat looming over many; the presence of a gun amplifying the risk of domestic homicide by fivefold. Together, we dissect the United States vs. Rahimi case, examining its potential impact on Second Amendment rights and the protective order process, while considering the broad repercussions for survivor safety and public policy.
Amid the complexities of domestic violence legislation, we unravel the true efficacy of protective orders. Jennifer Becker illuminates their pivotal role in providing a lifeline for survivors, from shielding their physical safety to upholding their rights to financial independence and safe visitation. She also pulls back the curtain on the critical yet often unseen work of community collaboration, emphasizing the significance of local law enforcement, policymakers, and advocates working in concert to translate protective laws into protective practices that can save lives.
As we wrap up, our focus shifts to the strategies aimed at curtailing gender-based gun violence, underscoring the importance of integrating criminal, civil, federal, and firearm purchase prevention measures. The conversation zeroes in on the meticulous task of maintaining accurate court records, vital for effective federal background checks, and the ongoing efforts to seal the cracks through which domestic abusers might access firearms. By fostering robust partnerships and rigorous policy enforcement, we underscore our collective call to action to enhance community safety and strengthen support for those most vulnerable to domestic abuse.
Immerse yourself in a critical discussion with Attorney Jennifer Becker of the Battered Women's Justice Project as we confront the dire consequences of gun violence within intimate partner relationships. Imagine the threat looming over many; the presence of a gun amplifying the risk of domestic homicide by fivefold. Together, we dissect the United States vs. Rahimi case, examining its potential impact on Second Amendment rights and the protective order process, while considering the broad repercussions for survivor safety and public policy.
Amid the complexities of domestic violence legislation, we unravel the true efficacy of protective orders. Jennifer Becker illuminates their pivotal role in providing a lifeline for survivors, from shielding their physical safety to upholding their rights to financial independence and safe visitation. She also pulls back the curtain on the critical yet often unseen work of community collaboration, emphasizing the significance of local law enforcement, policymakers, and advocates working in concert to translate protective laws into protective practices that can save lives.
As we wrap up, our focus shifts to the strategies aimed at curtailing gender-based gun violence, underscoring the importance of integrating criminal, civil, federal, and firearm purchase prevention measures. The conversation zeroes in on the meticulous task of maintaining accurate court records, vital for effective federal background checks, and the ongoing efforts to seal the cracks through which domestic abusers might access firearms. By fostering robust partnerships and rigorous policy enforcement, we underscore our collective call to action to enhance community safety and strengthen support for those most vulnerable to domestic abuse.
Speaker 1:
Attorney Jennifer Becker from the Battered Women's Justice Project joins us to discuss the state of gun violence and intimate partner relationships, with a special focus on the ramifications of the Rahimi case. I'm Maria McMullin and this is released on the podcast on crimes against women on April 29th 2024. The podcast on crimes against women is available anywhere you listen to podcasts. Jennifer Becker serves as the director at the National Center on Gun Violence and Relationships and as the project director at the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence and Firearms at the Battered Women's Justice Project.
Speaker 1:
Ms Becker's legal career began as a prosecutor in New York City, where she specialized in cases involving sexual assault, domestic violence and child abuse. She also served as the Title IX coordinator for the largest K-12 school district in the nation, charged with ensuring effective prevention and response to gender-based violence among students and staff. Prior to Ms Becker's role at BWJP, she served as Legal Director for Legal Momentum, the Women's Legal Defense and Education Fund, where she implemented innovative legal strategies combining impact litigation, policy advocacy and education initiatives affecting a range of issues faced by survivors of gender-based violence, and worked on federal policies impacting domestic violence and gun violence, including the Violence Against Women Act and the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. Jennifer Becker, welcome to the show. Thank you, I'm glad to be here.
Speaker 1:
In 1996, then Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone stated and this is a quote all too often the only difference between a battered woman and a dead woman is the presence of a gun. This statement remains as true as ever in 2024, where the data demonstrates the risk of homicide and domestic violence incidences increases by as much as 500% with the presence of a firearm. How does the work of the Battered Women's Justice Project respond to the very real dangers for women whose abusive partners own firearms?
Speaker 2:
Well, our work is exactly grounded in the research that you just cited, that realization. The Battered Women's Justice Project is a collection of national legal policy and practice centers, all of them at the intersection of gender-based violence and legal systems. So I serve as director of BWJP's National Center on Gun Violence and Relationships and our work focuses really exclusively on this intersection of intimate partner violence and gun violence. And that research is the impetus for this project which predates my time here. It was really born out of that stark reality and what we heard from survivors as their lived experiences experiences. So we approach the work by serving as expert legal voices for communities, for systems, to help them put law into practice, to disarm domestic abusers, to reduce domestic violence, homicides.
Speaker 1:
How big is this issue about? How many women are affected each year by assault with a firearm in a domestic violence situation?
Speaker 2:
It's unfortunately all too common. The way that firearms are used in intimate partner. Violence really is all across the domestic violence spectrum all forms of abuse. They are used as instruments to further the abuser's power and control in a myriad of ways, not just pulling the trigger. So survivors describe the very presence of a gun as enough to keep them intimidated and controlled. It can be an omnipresent reminder. Have some data around this link.
Speaker 2:
In 2019 alone, for example, nearly a million US women reported being shot at or shot by an intimate partner and more than four and a half million US women reported being threatened with a gun by an intimate partner.
Speaker 2:
And in 2014, as another sort of measure of the pervasiveness of the issue, the Domestic Violence Hotline did a survey of folks who had contacted the hotline for support and of those who responded to the survey, who reported that their partner had threatened them with a gun, two-thirds said that their partner had made verbal threats to use the gun.
Speaker 2:
A quarter said that their partner had threatened them with a gun. Two-thirds said that their partner had made verbal threats to use the gun. A quarter said that their partner had waved the gun around or pointed at them or others. 30% said their partner left the gun out to create a feeling of fear, and over half said their partner had threatened suicide with the gun just to give you a scope of all along that spectrum where this threat falls. And then, of course, there is the lethality risk. So the research that you already cited, and we also have research that demonstrates that where guns are the instrument of domestic violence incidents, those incidents are 12 times more likely to result in the victim's death than incidents that involve any other weapon or bodily force.
Speaker 1:
Even more than strangulation Correct.
Speaker 2:
Wow, just because of the lethality of gun injuries, right Guns are such dangerous instruments.
Speaker 1:
Absolutely, and there are many, many cases that we could discuss and cite that demonstrate the lethality risk and just the overall risk to safety for women in intimate partner relationships where domestic abuse occurs, not the least of which is the recent case of United States versus Rahimi that started in Arlington, texas, and has moved up to the Supreme Court and reignited conversations around offender rights, lethality, risks for victims, protective order processes, the condition of public safety and so on. Can you summarize for us what this case is about, why it is so controversial and polarizing and the subsequent ramifications if the US Court of Appeals decision is upheld?
Speaker 2:
So the case is about one of the domestic violence-related restrictions on firearm possession that exists in federal law. So, very simply, federal law has an enumerated list of reasons which make someone ineligible to possess or purchase guns or ammunition. One of those enumerated reasons is when a person is subject to a domestic violence protection order. Folks may refer to this as a restraining order, and this has been federal law since the mid-1990s. And in addition to this as a restraining order and this has been federal law since the mid-1990s, and in addition to this federal law, many states have incorporated mirroring restrictions on their state law.
Speaker 2:
But what the Supreme Court is considering now is whether that federal restriction violates the Second Amendment of the Constitution. And I mean the issue is polarizing for the obvious reasons and that anytime we're talking about the right to possess access firearms, it can become a really pretty polarizing conversation in our country. But the ramifications of upholding the underlying decision here, which held that it wasn't unconstitutional it's really not an overstatement to say that people will die, that people will be less safe, because we know that this law has been effective. It does, when it's properly implemented, achieve its goal of reducing domestic violence homicides In the decades that it's been in effect this type of restriction. There is research that indicates that in states that have the state level domestic violence protection order restriction on firearm access, there's been a 12% reduction in domestic violence homicides Because these laws are rooted in what we know about survivor experiences and the research.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and the Second Amendment and others have argued this as well. At the time that that was constructed, domestic violence was not part of that conversation. There was no such thing really considered as domestic violence because things like wife beating and lots of other things we could list were not illegal. They weren't part of a conversation.
Speaker 2:
They weren't, and you know women who are, you know overwhelmingly, you know statistically, the victims of domestic violence had no rights and it wasn't even conceptualized as having rights in our Constitution Right, weren't even conceptualized as having rights in our constitution right. And even as society has evolved in understanding intimate partner violence, those conversations even really began, as this is a private issue, a problem in the home, and you know, thankfully we have evolved in understanding of domestic violence as being a community issue.
Speaker 1:
Yes, and I mean, I'm just to be clear. I'm not a constitutional law expert, but the work of others has informed you know a conversation around what's what are the rights of convicted offenders or people under protective orders when it comes to firearms. That is a major conversation in this country and for law enforcement agencies and others that establish or support firearms surrender programs, it's part of that conversation. How would upholding the Rahimi appeal impact those efforts?
Speaker 2:
And I want to be clear too in framing the conversation around Rahimi that the only restriction the Supreme Court is considering in the Rahimi case is the restriction related to protection orders. So there is a separate restriction for folks who have been convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence, which also now includes dating violence, and that's not an issue here. So we're only talking about the protection orders right now. But of course upholding the underlying decision would have an impact on from whom law enforcement could remove or seek surrender of firearms. And yeah, so of course it could impede law enforcement's ability to remove firearms from those who are subject to domestic violence protection orders and also to be clear too in this context, that restriction is only in place while the protection order is in place. It could certainly impede their ability to do that. It would also impede the ability of the federal background check system to deny a purchase from someone subject to a protection order.
Speaker 1:
And speaking of protective orders, there are some who may argue that if the appeal is upheld, that protective orders become moot, that there's no point in securing those. How do you respond to that?
Speaker 2:
I'm really glad that you asked this question because this is certainly something that we will work very hard to dispel, a notion that we don't want to persist. So domestic violence protection orders are really a vital legal tool for survivor safety. They are more than just a piece of paper, which is a phrase we sometimes hear people say. They're just a piece of paper and they really are not. They're really the only tool that our justice system has that is comprehensive and flexible to address all of the forms of domestic violence that an individual survivor may be facing at that moment.
Speaker 2:
We believe very firmly, and the research supports, that threats of gun violence must continue to be part of that. But even if we have to live in a world where they cannot be, domestic violence protection orders can do visitation. They can address financial considerations and, of course, some of the more obvious things that people think of when they think of a restraining order. They can address physical access to the spaces that a survivor needs to navigate on a daily basis to allow a survivor to safely access work, so they're economically stable, to access school for them or their children. So they really are a very important tool for survivor safety and they will continue to be, even if we're forced to live in a world where we can't use them to expressly remove the risk of firearms, which we hope to continue to be able to do.
Speaker 1:
If this appeal is upheld and it finds that this particular individual's constitutional rights were violated, that will then, I assume, set a precedent for other cases. Is that correct?
Speaker 2:
hold it the rationale they use to uphold the underlying Rahimi decision from the Fifth Circuit. The rationale to uphold it will be critical in understanding what the implication is for the state laws that mirror it, for the other types of firearm restrictions as well.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and I like the way you're clarifying this, because the whole thing is causing me to wonder. Just because they may find that for this one particular individual in this instance, perhaps constitutional rights were violated. I don't know that that fits every situation right, because some of these cases for domestic violence are very unique.
Speaker 2:
Yes, that's true, and unfortunately, the question that the Supreme Court has before it is although Mr Rahimi's case is the vehicle that got it there, it is the broad question of is this law unconstitutional? And if their answer is yes, then it is yes in every instance.
Speaker 1:
Even among the most violent of offenders. I just find this striking. You know that people could commit serious violent crimes, for which he went to jail for correct. I think Mr Rahimi is in jail, in prison.
Speaker 2:
For other offenses. For other offenses, that's right.
Speaker 1:
Not the crime of domestic violence.
Speaker 2:
I believe that the reason for which he was prohibited from having firearms was the domestic violence restraining order at the time that he committed those other offenses.
Speaker 1:
Okay. It's a lot more complex than just saying you know well, they may allow those constitutional rights to be upheld.
Speaker 2:
So it's not a very easy area of the law to really understand, especially as you sort of get down into the weeds of it.
Speaker 1:
But women's lives are at stake here. This is a human rights issue. It's beyond just whether or not someone has the legal right to own a firearm, regardless of what their criminal history might be. It becomes an issue of true risk of lethality, and that is a human rights issue.
Speaker 2:
That's right, and what we're talking about is removing access and, in this instance, temporarily removing access to firearms by folks who have been adjudicated as someone who is dangerous in this moment. And what we know about domestic violence is that danger is to their intimate partner, which should be enough. But even where it's not, it's because we understand that that danger is to the intimate partner and the community, and that's what we're talking about here. That's the justification for these policies. Right, it's removing guns and, in this instance, temporarily, but it's removing guns from folks who have been adjudicated as dangerous in this moment to others, to their intimate partners and the community at large.
Speaker 1:
And that's a big deal, right? Okay, so we've probably said that to death now. So, leaving Rahimi aside for a moment, one of the Battered Women's Justice Project features that you mentioned that distinguishes it from other firearms advocacy programs is community collaboration, and you've emphasized community throughout your comments so far. Let's expound on this. How does Battered Women's Justice Project engage stakeholders, interact with community leaders and communicate with communities who are distrustful of institutional interventions?
Speaker 2:
Well, I've been emphasizing community a lot as we've spoken, because this is really where the impact of these policies happens.
Speaker 2:
So we have the legal framework in place to disarm domestic abusers the federal policy that we've been talking about in the state level, that mirror or expand on those, and of course there are gaps that we can be working to fill. But for the most part we have the legal tools to address this issue and reduce domestic violence, homicides and injuries. But laws are only so good as they're implemented and this has to be done at the local level and in this instance it's sometimes the hyper-local level, county by county, municipality by municipality. So at BWJP, we view our role as supporting communities to build robust and reliable implementation that reflects their own community's needs. We aim to make sure that, as we can work with communities to do this, that all of the voices that should be heard in these conversations to build these policies are being heard and we can provide the legal expertise that they might need to develop policies and practices that they can use consistently and can maintain over time.
Speaker 1:
So is this work being conducted state by state?
Speaker 2:
Well, when we're talking about implementation of these, it's really even can be more local than that. Certainly, state policies are vital to being able to do the work, but it really is a very localized. It is a municipality's. Courts and law enforcement agencies and prosecutors and public defenders and victim advocacy organizations all have a voice in how we develop these practices that will work localized and technical. Who's going to inform someone who is now restricted from having a firearm that they are in fact restricted? Who is going to be equipped to receive surrendered firearms and store them while they are required to be surrendered, right? So those really all have to reflect individual communities, what their capacity looks like, and have to be done at the local level. So the localities have to be equipped to develop and put these practices into effect.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, process matters, right. I mean, it's one thing to issue a policy or a procedure, but if you don't have a process in place to get it done and everyone doesn't know what they're supposed to do, then it isn't going to happen. And the reason I asked that question you know do you do this work state by state? It just seems like it would take a very long time to implement it across 50 states with all these different counties and things that you need to navigate. So you must have people working across the country, is that right?
Speaker 2:
Well, the role that we try to serve is to provide this expertise and assistance to localities, and the role that we try to serve is to lift up the models that are really working, that those communities are finding effective, so that we can be spreading those models to other communities to say, you know what that reflects our community as well, we can implement that here, and that may be a model that addresses a piece of this implementation or the whole model, and so we try to serve that and by doing that we can hopefully spread best practices quickly and communities can see in other communities themselves and realize that what seems like a daunting task to take on you can do in pieces and you can draw from other communities' experiences and it's not quite as daunting as it might seem at the outset.
Speaker 1:
Gotcha. So in combination with that, the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence and Firearms focuses on four community strategies that help to prevent gun-related homicides. Can you define what those four strategies are and their individual impact on gender-based gun violence prevention overall?
Speaker 2:
Sure. So we describe these four community strategies as criminal strategies, civil strategies, federal strategies and purchase prevention, and so a bit of what we mean by each of these and we've talked a bit already about some of this with respect to criminal strategies is working with the criminal legal system, and this is particularly related to the restriction around convictions for misdemeanor crimes of domestic violence, and folks who are convicted of felony convictions are also restricted from accessing firearms.
Speaker 2:
But to build their capacity to do the things we were just talking about, make sure that the records created by the court have all the information necessary so that the restriction is effective meaning the information needed for the federal background check system is entered in the way that it might need to be and includes everything it might need to be, that folks are informed about needing to surrender firearms and similarly, with civil strategies where courts are issuing domestic violence protection orders that might trigger this prohibition, are they receiving the information that they need to receive? And how can we educate the systems about the realities of the intersection of domestic violence and gun violence and all of the ways that guns are utilized in domestic violence, the ways that we started this conversation? Do these systems have an appreciation for that reality so that they could recognize the threat presented and issue those domestic violence protection orders and make parties aware of their responsibilities related to the restriction? And then, with respect to federal strategies, we try to build partnerships and help serve as a bridge, where we can, between federal, state and local partnerships so that we have more robust implementation and so that we can help be a bridge in helping those who are implementing these policies and practices realize all of the resources they have access to to make that implementation happen and happen consistently. Implementation happen and happen consistently.
Speaker 2:
And then, when we talk about purchase prevention strategies, we talk about how can we make sure that folks who should not be accessing firearms are not able to go out and purchase? So surrendering firearms that are already in someone's possession or that they have access to is one aspect of this implementation, but then there is preventing purchases by folks who are prohibited from purchasing for the time that they are prohibited from doing so. So making sure that we are building the capacity of states and localities to be feeding the right information into the federal background check system, and also thinking through what are some non-systems based way we can encourage the surrender or the prevention of access to firearms for those who are committing domestic violence, who are presenting a risk to intimate partners in the community.
Speaker 1:
So then, in doing all of this work, what gaps have you identified in protocol policy politics that allow for abusive partners to have access to firearms?
Speaker 2:
Well, we really addressed a lot of this already. One thing that bears mentioning is that there are still many reasons today why survivors either don't want to or cannot access legal systems, whether it's criminal or civil. They might really be unable to put these legal frameworks in action because they really are in large part, dependent on system involvement. So we really need to be developing ways that we can encourage removal of guns from domestic violence situations without the use of legal systems. We still have a lot to explore about how we can build communities capacity to disarm abusers without relying on legal systems.
Speaker 1:
That's true, but speaking of legal systems, it makes me think about the work that the prosecutor has to do in some of these cases, and it is crucial that they write up cases for juries, judges, pretrial corrections officials and others in a way that not only holds offenders accountable but ensures future safety for victims and their families. What are some key points that prosecutors need to include in domestic or intimate partner violence documentation?
Speaker 2:
Well, there's lots of practical points. Practical practice points, of course, in terms of making sure that we can put the federal law into practice. So you know, documenting with accuracy the nature of the relationship between the parties, which is one of the factors in whether the federal firearms restriction would apply in any given case. So there's a lot of practical points. But, to generalize, one of the most important things is for prosecutors to really have an understanding of what intimate partner violence looks like, what the reality is for survivors. The way we started this conversation, acknowledging that intimate partner violence is a large spectrum of behavior that all creates a general power and control over the victim, but really understanding that domestic violence is often much more than the individual criminal acts that a prosecutor can charge in court, and really building that narrative and that survivor's story into their prosecutions so that that spectrum of abuse and that history between the parties is evident.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and that's a good. It's a good opportunity for expert witnesses right in those cases, people who understand domestic violence, work with survivors, who can maybe know something about this particular case but understand the spectrum that you mentioned and can educate the courtroom.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely. It's educating the court, it's educating our juries.
Speaker 1:
Expert witnesses can be really valuable victims or survivors, their families and the community. But then there's law enforcement, who are the first responders to many of these calls and they are not exempt from this danger, which makes the Rahimi case even more daunting. So how can gun violence policy work, help to keep our police officers and other first responders safe?
Speaker 2:
Absolutely In every community that we have heard has looked at data around this issue. It's overwhelmingly that folks committing community gun violence are the same folks committing domestic violence. Domestic violence really is a community violence issue. That responding to domestic violence calls is among the most dangerous interactions that they have on the job. So the motivation to build policies and practices that effectively implement these laws that disarm domestic abusers it's also about law enforcement and general community safety. We want to reduce domestic violence homicides and we are driven by survivors' homicides and we are driven by survivors' experiences. But we also appreciate and are driven by the fact that domestic violence is not just an issue in the home, in that immediate family. It is a community issue and a very present danger for law enforcement, and so effective implementation is going to improve safety across communities.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I really love the way you frame that, because if it's a community violence issue, it is also then a public health and public safety crisis. Right, that's exactly right. So to those points, then, if it's a community violence issue, private citizens may want to help people that they know are in danger, whether it's a family member, a neighbor. If they know that there are firearms being held by someone who has an abusive past, what can they do? What can just you know, the ordinary person do to help ensure that victims in these situations and the community at large can remain safe?
Speaker 2:
Well, the best thing that any of us can do is believe survivors when they speak to us about their experience and believe that the survivor knows their situation best. So their assessment of the danger they might be in is the most accurate assessment that we could have. And we talked about the fact that there are many reasons survivors may not wish to access legal systems. But any of us can help, support a survivor and help them reach or maintain safety in any given situation. So one is be informed right and trust what they're telling you, that their assessment is accurate, and you could also help them access victim services. So victim advocates can often help survivors' safety plan, including taking into account the threat or risk of guns, and often can do this without the survivor accessing the legal system, and so help put them in contact with local victim service providers.
Speaker 2:
And if that's not an option for them, for whatever reason, any of us can also help the survivor develop a plan based on their individual needs and what they're willing to engage in at the time. So it could be helping make sure they have access to a cell phone that they can safely access for emergency contact. It could be putting some trusted contacts in their phone at easy access, speed dial, so to speak. Putting in place a code word, some trigger to tell their trusted person. I need help now and develop what that plan is. When I tell you I need help, call 911 or put this other plan into action, help them develop a plan for, if the abuse reaches a certain escalation point, what they are willing to and capable of doing and building resources, whether it's financial or otherwise, so that they can gain some safety and independence. So you can be a support by listening and encouraging them to plan for safety. But they could be really useful for anyone who might have a friend or neighbor or community member that needs some support figuring out a safety plan.
Speaker 1:
So what's that website? So people can take a look.
Speaker 2:
You can go to bwjporg and in particular, our National Center on Protection Orders and Full Faith and Credit has what we call our SAFE tool, S-A-F-E, which is geared for advocates and helping safety plan, particularly around the risk of firearm violence, but really could be a great tool for anyone in the community.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, that sounds amazing. Jennifer, thank you so much for talking with me today.
Speaker 2:
Thank you for having me and for engaging in this really important discussion.
Speaker 1:
Attention, spanish-speaking listeners. Listen to the end of this podcast for information on how to reach a Spanish-speaking representative of Genesis.
Speaker 3:
Atención hispanohablantes Escucha este podcast hasta el final para recibir información de cómo comunicarse con el personal de Genesis en español.
Speaker 1:
If you or someone you know is in an abusive relationship, you can get help or give help at genesisshelterorg or by calling or texting our 24-7 crisis hotline team at 214-946-HELP 214-946-4357. Bilingual services at Genesis include text phone call. Bilingual services at Genesis include text phone call clinical counseling, legal services, advocacy and more. Call or text us for more information. Donations to support women and children escaping domestic violence are always needed. Learn more at genesisshelterorg. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 3:
I'm reminding you always that ending domestic violence begins when we believe her, or by calling or sending a text message to our 24-hour crisis line at 214-946-4357. Genesis Bilingual Services include text messages, calls, counseling, legal services, advice and more. Call us or send us a text for joining us. Remember, ending domestic violence begins when we believe in the victim.