Sex Assault Survivors and Guns

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/26/opinion/sex-assault-survivors-and-guns.html

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To the Editor:

In “Why I Bring My Gun to School” (On Campus, nytimes.com, July 24), Antonia Okafor argues that carrying a gun will help sexual assault survivors feel safer.

As a survivor of domestic violence, I empathize with her story and admire her courage in sharing her perspective. But as an advocate who has studied the research, spoken to many other survivors and as someone who was shot three times by my abuser — twice in the head, and left to die — I know that the opposite is true.

The gun lobby has spent millions trying to convince Americans that the only safe way to live is with a gun in reach at all times. But the reality is that carrying a gun actually creates far more risk than it prevents for victims and survivors.

In fact, one study found that women who owned guns were twice as likely to die from firearm homicide than women who did not. Another study found that abused women are five times more likely to be killed by their abusers if that person has access to a gun.

Everyone deserves to feel safe in her community, which is why it’s so important to urge our lawmakers to pass proven solutions, like preventing domestic abusers from buying guns, and to push back on the gun lobby’s false narrative that firearms make women safer.

RUTH M. GLENN, DENVER

The writer is executive director of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.