Some stories that caught our eye this week:
The New York Times calls for policies that will keep guns away from abusers: “While the gun violence debate often focuses on mass shootings of strangers, hundreds of Americans are fatally shot every year by spouses or partners. In 2013, 61 percent of women killed with guns were killed by husbands, ex-husbands or boyfriends.”
Over in the UK, researchers are pointing out that official crime statistics exclude many domestic violence crimes due to the rule that an individual victim can’t report more than five crimes total: “The Office for National Statistics says it is necessary because otherwise the sheer number of crimes committed by perpetrators against the same individual would skew the rest of the statistics. That’s right: the harm done by perpetrators of domestic violence is so devastating that calculating it defies statistics.”
Darrian Amaker was in the hospital after her partner beat her when she recorded this video: “Domestic violence is not a faraway issue. It affects people you know, cheerful people, people who sing, people who love.”
Can You Relate? 