Glamour: Gabby Giffords: "Dangerous People With Guns Are a Threat to Women"
Gabby Giffords: “Dangerous People With Guns Are a Threat to Women” (Glamour)
By Lucia Graves
After efforts to reform the nation’s gun laws have stalled repeatedly at the highest levels, a group of powerful women think they can succeed where the political system has failed. On Wednesday morning, former congresswomen and gun violence survivor Gabby Giffords launched a new coalition to combat gun violence, calling it a women’s issue that needs solutions from women leaders, at a domestic violence awareness summit put on by her organization, Americans for Responsible Solutions, in Washington, D.C. “Guns and domestic violence are a deadly mix,” Giffords said. “We don’t have to agree on everything, but we can agree on this: Dangerous people with guns are a threat to women. Criminals with guns. Abusers with guns. Stalkers with guns.”
The newly formed group, dubbed the Women’s Coalition for Common Sense, which builds upon Giffords state-level work to reform gun laws, will focus on engaging women leaders across many fields in preventing gun violence. Members of the effort already include such luminaries as former secretary of state Madeleine Albright and former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm, as well as affected citizens like Barbara Parker, the mother of slain Virginia reporter Alison Parker.
Women in the U.S. are roughly 11 times more likely to be killed by a gun than women in other comparably high-income countries, according to recent reports. And, in an opening panel with women leaders, aptly-named Women Speaking Out for Commonsense Solutions to Gun Violence, Katie Ray-Jones, the president and CEO of the National Domestic Violence Hotline, recounted even more disturbing statistics with which she has some personal experience. A recent survey conducted by her hotline found a full 16 percent of victims calling in for help said their abusers had access to firearms and 10 percent said their abuser had discharged a firearm during an argument. What’s more, she said the majority of victims reported they would feel safer if law enforcement took their abusers’ guns. “It’s crazy making,” she told Glamour’s Washington editor, Giovanna Gray Lockhart, who moderated Wednesday’s panel. “We’re outraged at this point. We want change this and we know we cannot do it alone.”
Janee Harteau, chief of police for the Minneapolis Police Department offered another perspective. “When is the last time you saw a woman shoot up a school or movie theater? When is the last time you saw a woman killer her partner with a firearm?” she asked. “When have you seen a woman officer shoot an unarmed suspect?” In the years since the deaths of unarmed black men Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and Eric Garner at the hands of white male police officers, the question could hardly be more loaded. “Women are brought up differently,” Harteau continued, adding that common sense dictates any viable solution needed to include women in the making of it.
Reformers certainly need to do something differently. Despite the grim statistics, Congress hasn’t managed any significant gun reform for the better part of a decade. So can talking about gun violence as a women’s issue help make some progress at the state—or any—level? These women are betting the answer is yes.