[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 7]
[House]
[Pages 10174-10175]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




     DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND THE NEED FOR UNIVERSAL BACKGROUND CHECKS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Maryland (Ms. Edwards) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. EDWARDS. Mr. Speaker, years before coming to Congress, as many of 
my colleagues know, I cofounded and served as the executive director of 
the National Network to End Domestic Violence.
  Twenty years ago, we worked with a bipartisan Congress to pass the 
Domestic Violence Offender Gun Ban. It became law in 1996. It was known 
as the Lautenberg amendment, after the late Senator Frank Lautenberg of 
New Jersey.

                              {time}  1245

  Since that time, we have made a lot of progress in preventing 
domestic violence, but, sadly, there are several Mack Truck-size 
loopholes that prevent the law from coming to its full effect. In fact, 
just last week, in a fight against the gun lobby, yet again, over these 
last 20 years, the Supreme Court upheld the domestic violence offender 
gun ban in a 6-2 decision.
  As many know, leaving an abusive relationship is the most dangerous 
time for a domestic violence victim, and adding a firearm to that 
situation severely heightens the risk of injury or death. In fact, in 
America, the majority of fatal domestic violence homicides are 
committed with firearms. At least 52 percent of American women murdered 
with guns are killed by intimate partners or family members.
  Despite impressions from media coverage, mass shootings in which at 
least four people are murdered with a gun are also typically acts of 
domestic or family violence. An Everytown, USA, analysis of every mass 
shooting between 2009 and 2015 found that 57 percent were committed by 
intimate partners or the family of victims.

[[Page 10175]]

  Research shows that commonsense gun laws have a marked effect on 
improving women's safety from gun violence. In States that require 
background checks for all handgun sales, 46 percent fewer women are 
murdered with a gun by an intimate partner. And State laws ensuring 
that convicted abusers or those subject to domestic violence 
restraining orders are separated from their firearms are also 
associated with reductions in gun violence against women. But because 
of loopholes in these laws and failures to enforce them, they do little 
to curb the uniquely lethal American problem of guns and violence 
against women.
  Four gaps in the law are particularly harmful. First, Federal law 
does nothing to keep guns out of the hands of abusive dating partners 
or convicted stalkers. The Federal law prohibits domestic abusers from 
buying or owning guns but doesn't apply to dangerous people convicted 
of misdemeanor stalking offenses or to dating partners, even though 
more women in the U.S. are killed by their dating partners than their 
spouses.
  Second, in 35 States, State law does not prohibit all people 
convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence crimes and all people 
subject to restraining orders from buying or using guns.
  Third, and importantly, Federal law allows domestic abusers and 
stalkers to easily evade gun prohibitions by purchasing guns from 
unlicensed private sellers. That is the Mack Truck loophole. Federal 
law only requires background checks for gun sales at licensed dealers. 
Sixteen States require checks on all handgun sales, but in the 
remaining States, prohibited abusers seeking to avoid a background 
check have very little trouble purchasing a gun from an unlicensed 
dealer they meet online, at a gun show, or in a parking lot.
  Prohibited domestic abusers know about this loophole and they have 
taken advantage of it to deadly effect. And, in fact, in a first-of-
its-kind investigation of illegal gun sales, Mayors Against Illegal 
Guns found that one in four prohibited purchasers seeking guns online 
had a domestic violence arrest.
  Finally, 41 States do not require prohibited abusers to relinquish 
the guns they already own, so I have joined in legislation to prohibit 
these guns from falling into the hands of domestic abusers. We know 
that a proven way to help with people who are not eligible to purchase 
guns, such as felons and domestic abusers, is to expand and strengthen 
universal background checks on all firearms sales no matter where that 
sale takes place. And, very tragically, our lax gun laws make it easier 
for abusers to acquire a firearm than it is, in fact, to purchase a box 
of Sudafed.
  So you ask, Mr. Speaker, why do we protest? Why did we take the 
dramatic action of taking to the floor of this House?
  It is because we have had enough, and we know that, working together, 
we can and must change the fact that women across this country lose 
their lives to gun violence by their domestic abusers.
  Nine American women are shot and killed by their husbands and 
intimate partners every single week. We can do something about it. 
Let's close the gun show loophole.

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