Kansas won’t join effort to tighten domestic abuse gun laws
During the nine years examined, the fewest reported domestic violence-related fatal shootings happened in 2014, with 13.
Lawmakers’ push this year to crack down on violent crime doesn’t include strengthening laws to keep firearms from domestic abusers, despite recommendations from a state-appointed review team and a trend that has seen more states enact similar laws. They have passed even in states dominated politically by Republicans, including SC and Wisconsin.
The executive director of the Kansas Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence, Joyce Grover, said proposals such as Bollier’s represent good intentions but also several pitfalls, including the potential to conflict with existing federal laws that already prohibit people with a protection order to have weapons or ammunition.
But in the least serious third-degree domestic violence cases, whether someone convicted of the crime can keep or buy guns is left up to the judge.
“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.
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.
Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said if there’s evidence of domestic violence when deputies respond to a call, it means a person is going to jail, and that the courts will decide what’s appropriate after that.
The law did more than ban guns.
Police could remove firearms with a gun seizure warrant if there’s probable cause to believe a gun restraining order has been violated. “But if you take certain actions you give up certain rights”.
“Innocent until proven guilty is a strong priority in Kansas”, he said. “Having said that, we don’t work for the federal government”.
That number included 71 in the Las Vegas area. More than 80 percent of those killed were women.
An average of 760 Americans a year were killed with guns by spouses, ex-spouses or dating partners between 2006 and 2014, according to an Associated Press analysis of Federal Bureau of Investigation and Florida data.
Victims in the Arkansas homicides consisted of: 31 girlfriends, 28 wives, 10 husbands, seven boyfriends, two ex-husbands and one ex-wife. That figure is based on data that law enforcement authorities provide to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. A bill introduced previous year would have put more of the burden on the suspect, ordering them to immediately surrender firearms instead of possibly waiting for a judge’s order.