Kristen Rand

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and the role played by guns in female homicide is all too clear according to When Men Murder Women, a new Violence Policy Center analysis of unpublished Federal Bureau of Investigation statistics. In 2002, the most recent data available, 1,880 women across America were murdered by men in single victim/single offender incidents. Six of those murders occurred in Wyoming. Half of these women-50 percent-were shot and killed with guns, two out of three times with a handgun.

According to the study, Wyoming ranked fifth on the top 10 list of states with the highest rate of such killings. Wyoming is joined in the top 10 by Alaska, which came in first, as well as Louisiana, New Mexico, Nevada, South Carolina, Tennessee, Delaware, North Carolina, and Alabama-all states with weak gun control laws.

None of these Wyoming women were the victims of armed robbers, home invaders, or burglars. In fact, where the circumstances could be determined, none of the killings were related to another felony. The majority of the women-67 percent-were victims of domestic violence that escalated to homicide, dying at the hands of "intimate partners," such as husbands, ex-husbands, and boyfriends. And for those killed by intimates, 75 percent were killed by guns, most often handguns. None of these women were murdered by strangers.

Research shows that guns in the home contribute significantly to domestic homicide. In his new book "Private Guns, Public Health," Harvard researcher David Hemenway cites research he co-authored showing that in "the United States, women in states with higher levels of household firearm ownership are more likely to be murdered, particularly with a gun." An earlier study co-authored by Hemenway analyzed gun use at home and concluded that "hostile gun displays against family members may be more common than gun use in self-defense, and that hostile gun displays are often acts of domestic violence directed against women."

Yet the link between guns and domestic violence seems lost on Wyoming's U.S. House member. On Sept. 29, Representative Barbara Cubin ignored the lessons of Wyoming and voted to place women living in Washington, D.C., at increased risk of domestic homicide by supporting a bill to repeal the strict gun control laws of our nation's capital. Those laws include a ban on handguns and semiautomatic assault weapons. Some sporting rifles and shotguns are legal, but must be registered and kept unloaded or locked. In 2002, only one woman living in Washington, D.C., was the victim of a single male offender, putting the nation's capital in 47th place in the rate of women murdered by men.

Following release of the VPC study, Rosemary Bratton, director of the Wyoming Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, was quoted as stating: "Guns and domestic violence are just a lethal combination." Keeping guns out of homes where there is a risk of domestic violence is one measure that will help keep women alive. Rather than putting women in the District of Columbia at greater risk by forcing Wyoming's lax gun laws on Washington, DC, Representative Cubin should give some thought to better protecting the women of Wyoming.

Kristen Rand is legislative director for the Violence Policy Center (www.vpc.org), a non-profit educational organization working to reduce gun death and injury in America.