Until the new gun law passed, federal law only barred a person who was married and convicted of domestic abuse from owning a firearm. The law extends that to people who are dating.
Federal law already prohibited convicted domestic abusers from owning a firearm. But that applied largely to married couples, or at most, to abusers "similarly situated to a spouse." extends the reach of the gun ban to intimate partners who are dating. In popular terminology, it closed the "boyfriend loophole."among intimate partners — which includes divorced and homosexual couples — girlfriends accounted for 37%. Wives accounted for 34%.
, closing the boyfriend loophole has been a goal of women’s and public health advocates for some time."We have so many women killed — 1 every 14 hours, from domestic partners with guns in this country," Klobuchar said as the bill was debated on the Senate floor. "Sadly, half of those involve dating partners, people who aren't married to someone, but they are in a romantic relationship with them in some way.
A group of researchers looked at intimate partner homicides in 45 states between 1980 and 2013. They focused on firearm prohibitions linked to domestic restraining orders, which is a bit different than the new law. , researchers saw that when firearm prohibitions linked to domestic restraining orders included people who were dating, deaths dropped by 13%. Daniel Webster, a firearms violence researcher at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, was part of the team.
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