Women’s safety and the debate over guns

Pro-gun groups and pro-gun regulation groups have one thing in common: They both say one of their top priorities is protecting women.

The problem? They’ve got opposite solutions.

Gun regulation proponents say they’re worried about domestic violence — specifically an upcoming Supreme Court case that could result in more guns in the hands of domestic abusers. Gun rights advocates say that women would be safer if they carried their own firearms — and want less red tape to make that happen.

“As a five-foot tall, 100-pound woman, I choose to protect myself legally – because I am my best security,” said Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) in a 2021 ad where she vowed to bring her Glock to Congress.

That’s a sentiment which stretches all the way back to WWI, when women made the case that with their husbands away and with atrocities against women happening in France and Belgium, they needed to own guns to defend themselves and their families. Eventually, it was considered a patriotic war effort for women to own a firearm.

The bones of that argument still appear in many pro-gun spaces — especially those which are made up of women.

“I do carry it when I’m permitted to do so, and I know that I’m prepared to protect myself and my daughter in the event that somebody tries to kill us,” Theresa Inacker, the New Jersey state director of the D.C. Project, an organization made up of pro-gun women, tells Women Rule. “I really do see it as a women’s issue that way.”

Inacker believes that stricter gun legislation won’t equate to less gun violence, because “criminals” are “just flouting the law” anyway.

Pia Carusone, who was chief of staff for former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and was formerly executive director of the pro-regulation organization Giffords, disagreed.

“I think that there is this great lie that’s been sold or is being sold, and it’s being bought by some people … which is ‘We can’t stop all gun crime, so it’s not worth even trying to stop some,’” says Carusone, who is now the managing director of SKDK, a Democratic political consulting firm.

There’s a lack of data on the best methods to prevent gun violence, including how to reduce violence against women, largely due to restrictions imposed by Congress. In the mid-90s, Congress declared that funding at CDC shouldn’t be used to advocate for gun control, and that had a chilling effect on any research at all.

But in 2018, Congress clarified that the restrictions do not ban research, which spurred some new studies. In recent years, researchers have begun to see the outlines of a trend: states with laxer restrictions do have higher rates of gun deaths and mass shootings.

Recent data has also unearthed an interesting trend about opinions on gun restrictions: Women, even Republican women, are more likely to support gun restrictions than their male counterparts. And a recent poll from All In Together and Republican polling firm Echelon Insights found that guns are the top concern for women voters in 2024.

The D.C. Project’s Inacker chocks that up to a “fear of the unknown.”

“I think there’s a lot of fear-mongering that goes on,” she says. “It’s about educating [women] so that you can be your own first responder.”

Kris Brown, the president of Brady, one of the U.S.’ oldest gun violence prevention organizations, says that it boils down to moms worrying about the safety of their children: “A lot of these women have kids,” she tells Women Rule. “As moms, they are afraid.”

Angela Ferrell-Zabala, the executive director of Moms Demand Action, also suggested those stats might be related to the danger of guns in domestic violence situations.

“It’s inextricably linked with the violence against women crisis,” she says.

The intersection of gun violence and domestic abuse has gotten some extra attention this year, after the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a federal law that prohibits gun possession for individuals under domestic violence restraining orders. The Supreme Court has agreed to consider the case.

While women are more supportive of restrictions than men, polling by Fox News shows that voters in general favor gun restrictions over arming citizens to reduce gun violence.

The poll found that 45 percent of voters would encourage citizens to carry guns for protection, while 87 percent supported criminal background checks and around 80 percent supported improving enforcement of existing gun laws, raising the legal age to buy a gun to 21 and requiring mental health checks on gun buyers.

“I would push back really strongly that we’re just going to arm everybody because we know an armed society is not a safe society,” Ferrell-Zabala says.

“Whether you are Republican or Democrat, you don’t think that you want to live in a society where to make yourself feel safe, you have to carry an assault style weapon to your Whole Foods or your grocery store,” Brown says.

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“New Jersey Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver’s legacy: A progressive champion and ‘ideal public servant’” by Ry Rivard and Daniel Han for POLITICO: “[Sheila] Oliver, who died this week at age 71, was the first Black woman Assembly speaker in state history and the second to lead a legislative chamber in the country before becoming Gov. Phil Murphy’s lieutenant governor. In that role she was the first Black woman in New Jersey to hold statewide elected office.”

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“Henrietta Lacks’ descendants reach a settlement over the use of her ‘stolen’ cells,” by Joe Hernandez for NPR: “Lacks’ descendants have argued that she and other Black women were ‘preyed on’ by a group of white doctors in the 1950s and that her family was never compensated for the use of her genetic material, which made such profitable scientific advancements possible.”

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Transitions

Coleen O’Lear has been appointed senior director of curation & platforms for Yahoo News, U.S. She was previously head of curation and platforms for The Washington Post.

Andrea Ducas is joining the Center for American Progress as VP of health policy. She most recently was senior program officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Salena Jegede is now chief of donor advising at Way to Win. She previously was chief advancement officer at the Sierra Club. (h/t Playbook.)