Cross post from Gun Control Reform Activism.

[flamin lib]

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2016/01/25/state_by_state_more_guns_mean_more_killing_of_women.html

State by State, More Guns Mean More Killing of Women

A new study from Boston University has found a strong correlation between a state’s rate of gun ownership and its rate of women murdered by people they know. The article, soon to be published in Violence and Gender, stands to combat claims from conservatives that guns make women safer. In fact, relaxing gun laws may have dire implications for domestic violence.

Authors Michael Siegel and Emily Rothman studied firearm ownership rates and how they compared with gun-related homicides of both men and women, committed by both strangers and nonstrangers, from 1981 to 2013. After controlling for age, race, region, poverty, unemployment, education, divorce rate, alcohol use, and a number of other potentially extenuating factors, they found that higher levels of gun ownership corresponded to higher rates of women being killed by people they know, but not by strangers.
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“Our study confirms that a greater availability of firearms does not appear to protect women from homicides committed by strangers,” Siegel told me over email. “But it does appear to increase the risk for firearm homicides committed by non-strangers.”
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“This means that the rate of female non-stranger homicide in a state can be predicted well simply by using the prevalence of firearm ownership in that state,” the authors write.

The NRA is making a serious push to market guns to women. In every scenario it's a bad guy who confronts a petite young woman either in her home or in a dark alley. They don't bother telling women that they if they are attacked it is by someone who calls them Sweetheart. I'm not discouraging women from owning guns but should you choose to own one for self defense please take more than the few hours to qualify for a CCL. And wrap your head around the idea of killing someone because you won't have time to think about it.

More guns, more dead women. Period.

[friendly_iconoclast]

1. "More guns, more dead women. Period." Wrong- the number of women murder victims decreased...

...both in rate *and* absolute number over the last 15 years, all while the number of guns in
the US nearly doubled:

There were 3,076 women murdered in the US in 2000- source:

https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2000/table2-4_vicrace00.xls

143.4 million women in the US in 2000-source:

https://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/c2kbr01-9.pdf

Rate: 1 in 46,619

There were 2,715 women murdered in the US (that number includes victims of unknown sex)
in 2014- source:

https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/tables/expanded-homicide-data/expanded_homicide_data_table_1_murder_victims_by_race_ethnicity_and_sex_2014.xls


161,979,384 women in the US in 2014- source:

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html

Rate: 1 in 59,661

A decision to obtain (or not) a gun should be made for real reasons, not ficticious ones.

[Eleanors38]

2. Thanx. Saves me having to post. Geeez, fiction indeed.

[monicaangela]

3. Absolutely!

I can't understand why women or men for that matter think having a gun will protect them from a stranger. As you have said, most attacks on women and men for that matter come from someone they know. Why would women want to increase the chance that they will be killed by gun violence and possibly from a bullet shot from their own gun. I understand that fear is crippling, and causes people to do dumb things at times, but I personally believe having a gun increases the chance that you might be harmed by the gun you are attempting to depend on for your safety.