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Affiliation
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From Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, and Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan. |
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Abstract
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Homicide is a leading cause of death in women of childbearing age (1). Further, more than half of female homicides with a known perpetrator are committed by a current or former intimate partner (2). Firearm access in the home exacerbates the risk for homicide by an intimate partner (3). Although federal legislation, such as the Violence Against Women Act, restricts domestic abusers' access to firearms, state and local implementation of these regulations is highly variable.
In this issue, Díez and colleagues report a timely study that informs a simmering national debate about firearm-related policy (4). The researchers used data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Reports to investigate the effect of “relinquishment” laws on intimate partner homicide rates across all 50 states from 1991 to 2015. Relinquishment laws are those that prohibit firearm possession by domestic abusers who are subject to a restraining order and require abusers to surrender their firearms.
The authors' findings are promising: States with relinquishment laws were found to have intimate partner homicide rates that were significantly (14%) lower than in states without these laws. In contrast, non–statistically significant reductions were observed in states with laws that prohibited firearm possession by abusers who were subject to a restraining order but did not require abusers to surrender the firearms. Taken together, these findings underscore the importance of firearm surrender within broader policy debates about domestic abuse.
One notable challenge in Díez and colleagues' study involves potential confounding factors. For example, other federal and state laws implemented during the study period, such as laws pertaining to civil protection orders and stalking, may also have been related to homicide rates. It is also possible that states with firearm relinquishment laws also have more robust community outreach and social media campaigns against intimate partner violence.
Despite these limitations, the findings underscore the likely benefit of state-level policy ...
Language: en |