Q&A on state laws meant to keep guns from domestic abusers

“Domestic violence is definitely an area where there is the most agreement between the gun lobby and gun-violence prevention advocates”, said Allison Anderman, staff attorney with the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which is in San Francisco.

During the last two years, 13 states have passed laws meant to help keep firearms out of the hands of domestic abusers. Afterward, Joshua’s mother, Becky Ranes, sought a change in New Hampshire’s laws that would prevent people convicted of domestic violence from purchasing or possessing firearms.

Republicans and gun-rights activists have historically opposed the protective order legislation, saying in part that it’s unnecessary because it’s already covered under federal law.

The 2014 law stiffened penalties for some gun-based crimes, allowed for real-time background checks in private gun sales and created a firearms trafficking unit within the state police.

Across Oakland County, the killings are among at least 14 domestic violence deaths involving firearms from 2006 through 2014 reported to local police agencies, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.

Laura Berry, the executive director of the Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence, says state lawmakers could take several steps that could reduce Indiana’s fatal domestic violence shootings.

Newman’s bill would also ban gun possession for those convicted of sexual offenses and those with protective or restraining orders against them.

230 people in SC died in gun-related domestic violence homicides.

“They’re not in place in every community, so I think that we could expand that”, Yedlosky said. “You look at these cases and someone makes a threat, and yet no one says, ‘Hey, they didn’t surrender their guns'”.

Locally and nationally, the figures for domestic violence deaths are undercounted because not all departments voluntarily report the information, and it does not include children and other bystanders who were killed, according to the AP. “That would do a heck of a lot more to protect these women”. Reeves had threatened to kill his fiance and her children the year before but took a plea that allowed him to enter veteran’s court and see a judge weekly.

States, including Wisconsin and SC, have been passing their own laws to match or exceed the federal prohibitions. Chet Culver in 2010, bars individuals who are subjects of permanent protective orders and who have committed domestic violence-related misdemeanors from owning guns.

“When the governor signs a bill it isn’t over”, Barber said.

“It encompasses everybody who has a one-time blip in their life, and all of a sudden their gun rights are taken away forever”, said Wes Dunbar, an Iowa lawyer who has represented defendants upset over losing their ability to hunt.