Homicide statistics show that for many people the single most dangerous moment of their life will come while they’re at home with, or on the run from, a potentially lethal intimate partner.
That’s probably been true since humans have been cohabitating. It’s not something that’s become true only as guns have become ubiquitous in American society.
That said, a 7-year-old state law initially aimed at ratcheting down domestic violence is, in fact, about guns. And a group trying to spread the word about that category of gun law, known as Gun Violence Restraining Orders, is Human Options, an Irvine-based nonprofit aimed at helping victims of domestic violence.
“We were part of domestic violence death review team two years ago that looked at more than 100 (homicide) cases (over an 11-year window) involving intimate partners in Orange County,” said Maricela Rios-Faust, chief executive of Human Options.
“We wondered if there were opportunities to prevent those deaths. … If, maybe, there were educational opportunities.”
Last year, Human Options won a $100,000 grant to inform key people about gun violence restraining orders, or GVROs. Since then the agency has talked with police groups and held group meetings and launched a social media campaign to spread the GVRO word.
“We basically are letting people know that there is a tool that can be used to increase victim safety,” Rios-Faust said.
It’s an oddity of sorts. California has at least 107 gun laws on the books, more than any other state. And by most accounts the state’s long and restrictive list of gun rules is a key reason why the state’s gun death rate (8.8 per 100,000 people) is the nation’s sixth-lowest, about 36% lower than the national average.
Yet the state gun law that might have the most impact – the one that experts believe might even reduce a form of gun violence considered the most difficult to stave off – is so infrequently used that it needs a public relations…
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