Domestic violence and guns are a very dangerous combination. Many domestic violence fatalities are gun-related. A recent analysis of domestic violence fatality data indicates that hundreds of gun deaths happen in relation to domestic violence incidents annually here in America.
The analysis also found that Texas has seen a rather large number of domestic-violence-related gun fatalities. Specifically, the analysis indicated that, over the time period from 2006 to 2014, 798 such recorded fatalities occurred in the state. No other state had a total this high in the analysis.
As a note, given what the analysis does (and does not include) it is expected that the totals it yielded for domestic violence gun deaths are actually an underestimation.
Why do you think Texas has such a high domestic violence gun death total?
Now, there are various laws targeted at preventing domestic violence gun deaths. For one, here in Texas, individuals subject to an active domestic-abuse-related protective order generally are prohibited from possessing guns. Domestic-violence-related protective orders in the state are required to have warnings on them stating such.
This illustrates that protective orders can give all sorts of important protections to victims of domestic violence. This, in turn, underscores the very important role protective orders can play for domestic violence victims after an incident of domestic abuse. Assistance with submitting requests for protective orders is among the many types of legal help skilled family law attorneys can give domestic violence victims.
Lately, there has been a trend here in the U.S. of states tightening their laws regarding restricting domestic abuse perpetrator gun possession. Several states have toughened their domestic-violence-related gun laws in the past couple of years.
What do you think of where Texas currently is when it comes to domestic-violence-related gun laws? Are there any types of stricter such laws you would like to see Texas enact?
Source: Longview News-Journal, “States take action to keep guns out of abusers’ hands,” Feb. 7, 2016