VAWA 2019 recognizes intersection between gun ownership and domestic violence
By Fern White-Hilsenrath
Nonviolence International
A bill to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA)[i] passed in the House of Representatives on Thursday, April 4. The original Act VAWA 1994 was a landmark bill co-authored by then Sen. Joe Biden and Rep. Louise Slaughter. It was signed into law by President Bill Clinton.
This is the fourth reauthorization exercise in Congress. It received bipartisan support in 2000 and 2005. There was some opposition back in 2012 when the bill was amended to include protections for Native American Women, undocumented immigrants and members of the LGBTQ community. The bill however, passed in 2013. The 2013 bill lapsed in December of 2018 amidst a Congress/Whitehouse standoff and looming government shutdowns.
VAWA 2019 was introduced by California Congresswoman Karen Bass who pleaded with her House colleagues to pass the bill. “An estimated 2 million adults and 15 million children are exposed to domestic violence in the U.S. each year,” Bass noted. “These alarming figures makes it imperative that we reauthorize VAWA now,” Rep. Bass told Congress. “Movements like #MeToo across the country demands congress’ attention to deal with the gaping holes left unfilled around domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, harassment and stalking. The VAWA will have the same profound effects on the victim survivor, and their families no matter what party affiliation,”[ii] she said.
Despite Bass’s pleas for support from both sides of the house, voting was mostly along party lines — Democrats 263 to Republicans 158. Thirty-three Republicans voted with Democrats to pass the bill. The new bill expands protections for various groups which were left out of the original bill and is a win for IPV activists who have long bemoaned the infamous “boyfriend loophole” which excluded dating violence against single women.
- VAWA 2019 includes language that would close the “boyfriend loophole,” to include all forms of intimate partners. In the past an abuser was only barred against buying a gun if he is currently married to, formerly married to, had a child with, or lived with the victim.
- The 2019 bill also includes language that will lower the criminal threshold for which a person is eligible to purchase a gun. Misdemeanor convictions including stalking and domestic abuse are now included in the bill.
- VAWA 2019 now includes provisions that would require an expansion of protection for transgender people and would require the Bureau of Prisons to consider the safety and protection of transgender prisoners when giving housing assignments. Protection for gay, transgender and bisexual people has been included in the Act since 2013, however this expands the reach of the law.
- VAWA 2019 also gives protection for undocumented persons who are victims of DV.
Republicans who ultimately voted against the VAWA bill protested language protecting the rights to gender identity and sexual orientation. The inclusion, especially for transgendered individuals, is timely as they have one the highest rates of DV among population groupings.
House Republicans also objected to lowering the threshold of conviction to include misdemeanors[iii]. Their objections mirrors the views of the National Rifle Association (NRA).
“The gun control lobby and anti-gun politicians are intentionally politicizing the Violence Against Women Act as a smoke screen to push their gun control agenda,” said NRA spokeswoman Jennifer Baker. The NRA feels so strongly about the gun-control provision that it is evaluating the domestic violence law as a “key vote” that will help determine whether it will back a member a Congress for re-election,” she said. [iv].
The intersection between Intimate Partner Violence and and DV has long been recognized by activists. According to statistics by Gifford Law Center to prevent gun violence, IPV incidents involving guns are 12 times more likely to result in the victim’s death than are incidents of any other type. Women living in the United States are 16 times more likely to be killed by a gun than women in similarly situated countries. Abused women are five times more likely to be murdered by their abuser if the abuser owns a gun. Of all the women in America who were killed by gunfire in 2011, almost two-thirds were killed by their partner[v].
Nonviolence International — NY is thrilled with the passing of the bill in the house and hope that it will receive the same treatment in the Senate. We are part of global movement against gun violence and we partner with organizations like International Network on Small Arms #IANSA [vi], that links organizations working to stop the proliferation of and the misuse of firearms.
For more information on IANSA, and their fight to end gun violence, please visit: https://www.iansa.org/
For more information on how to contact your senator to tell them to vote for VAWA: https://nownyc.org/actions/defend-the-violence-against-women-act-vawa/
credit: Paul Morigi/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures
[i] https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU00/20190313/109100/BILLS-1161585ih.pdf
[iii]https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/13/us/politics/violence-against-women-act-transgender-guns.html
[iv] https://www.apnews.com/5115535bfd21479ea14ee0ff2e75170d
[v] https://lawcenter.giffords.org/domestic-violence-and-firearms-statistics/
Other useful links
