During the Democratic sit-in last night, one Congresswoman made it personal. Rep. Debbie Dingell had a childhood marked by domestic abuse and threatened gun violence. This is not the first time she has made a stand that those convicted of domestic violence should be denied access to guns. Detroit News:
U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Dearborn, invoked a personal experience in her childhood with gun violence during a sit-in on House floor by Democrats in the chamber that began on Wednesday and continued into Thursday morning in a bid to force a vote on a gun control measure.
“I lived in a house with a man that should not have had access to a gun,” Dingell said in a floor speech that began after midnight Wednesday. “I know what it is like to see a gun pointed at you and wonder if you were going to live. And I know what it is like to hide in the closet and pray to God ‘Do not let anything happen to me.’ ”
“We don’t talk about it,” she continued. “We don’t want to say that it happens in all kinds of households and we still live in a society where we will let a convicted felon who was stalking somebody of domestic abuse still own a gun.”
The National Coalition against Domestic Violence reports that
The presence of a gun in a domestic violence situation increases the risk of homicide by 500%.
Women in the US are 11 times more likely to be murdered with a gun than in other developed nations.
1 in 3 female murder victims are killed by intimate partners
2/3 of females murdered by intimate partners were killed with guns
1 in 15 children are exposed to intimate partner violence each year, and 90% of these children are eyewitnesses to this violence.
