Giffords seeks to make gun violence a women’s issue
Giffords seeks to make gun violence a women’s issue
KARE-TV
By John Croman
October 21, 2014- Gabrielle Giffords, perhaps the nation’s most famous gun violence survivor, is hoping to united women around the issue of keeping firearms out of the hands of stalkers and domestic abusers.
The former Arizona Congresswoman took part in a women’s domestic violence round table discussion Monday at the Harriet Tubman Center in Minneapolis, and event co-hosted by Chief Janee Harteau.
”Dangerous people with guns are a threat to women — stalkers with guns, abusers with guns, criminals with guns,” Giffords said to the group, reading from a statement she had written.
”That makes gun violence a women’s issue, for mothers, for families, for me and you. Women can lead the way.”
Giffords spent the rest of the meeting listening to women who work in women’s shelters, law enforcement, and gun violence prevention in the Twin Cities area. Several expressed frustration that guns are so easily accessible and revered in American culture.
”The mere presence of a gun in a domestic violence situation increases the risk a woman will die by five times,” Chief Harteau said to the panel.
”From 2003 to 2012 265 women were killed in Minnesota alone, and guns were used in 53 percent of those cases.”
Giffords’ congressional career was cut short in 2011 when she suffered a severe brain injury in a mass shooting in Tucson. Six people died in the attack at Gifford’s Congress on Your Corner event, while Giffords and 12 others survived.
She has slowly regained her cognitive and speaking skills, and has learned to walk again using a cane.
Since then Giffords co-founded Americans for Responsible Solutions with her husband, astronaut and retired Navy Capt. Mark Kelly, in an effort to find gun control initiatives that most firearms owners would endorse.
Harteau urged other panelists to join her in forming a Minnesota chapter of Gifford’s Protect All Women Leadership Network.
”On every domestic violence 9-1-1 call, we no longer ask. ‘Are there weapons in the home?’ We ask, ‘Are their guns in the home. Does the suspect have access to guns’?” Harteau said to reporters after the meeting ended.
Since August 1st Minnesota law has required gun owners who become subject to court-imposed domestic protection order to transfer possession of their firearms to a gun dealer, local police or a friend or relative who doesn’t live under the same roof.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar has a bill in the hopper that would deny new weapons to stalkers, and expand domestic protections to situations where the victim and suspect had a dating relationship.
The police chief took Giffords on a tour of the city, which included a stop at a shelter for battered women and their children.
”I realize there are things probably bigger than this group that we can’t take on, but I think we can focus on what we as individuals and collectively as a group can actually accomplish towards having an impact on domestic gun violence,” Harteau said.
The Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance of Minnesota issues a press release criticizing Giffords for not publicizing her event ahead of time.
The group’s founder, Hamline University professor Joseph Olson said gun control opponents always outnumber supporters at public hearings when they have adequate notice, citing legislative hearings in 2013 and 2014 at the State Capitol.
The group’s president, Andrew Rothman, said Giffords is part of a long string of out-of-state players trying to promote a gun control agenda in Minnesota.