A lot of the women I know who are deep in the Second Amendment community are domestic violence survivors. It makes perfect sense to me, though, because once you’ve been a victim, it’s easy to decide you never want to be one again.
And contrary to the pseudoscience currently being peddled in the mainstream media, women are not a physical match for women on average. Guns are equalizers in that regard since a firearm only cares if you’re strong enough to pull the trigger, and most adults are.
Yet there has always been an effort to somehow equate gun ownership with the troubles of domestic violence. Researchers have never looked at it as a way women can protect themselves from abusive partners, but instead, they’ve attacked gun rights as part of the problem.
The University of California-San Diego, just released a “study” that’s only going to make that worse.
A new cross-sectional analysis of populations in California and Louisiana has identified a strong correlation between gun ownership and intimate partner violence.
The paper describing the study, which was conducted by researchers at the University of California, San Diego, was unequivocal.
“Findings indicate those experiencing and perpetrating IPV are significantly more likely to report firearm ownership and recent purchase of a firearm,” the conclusion to the scientific paper flatly stated.
The paper’s authors say that they could not definitively link the causation of relationship violence to firearm purchases. However, the strength of the correlation suggests that policymakers must rethink how they frame protective gun-ownership narratives in relationships affected by violence, and that those policymakers must look toward legislation that accounts for the complex dynamics involved in both domestic partner violence and firearm ownership in the United States.
“Our findings suggest that both experiencing and perpetrating intimate partner violence are strongly associated with increased rates of firearm ownership and recent firearm purchase,” said Jakana Thomas, a UCSD professor of political science, an expert in violence and peace processes, and a co-author of the report, in a release.
That’s quite a take.
However, let’s look at how they reached that conclusion.
From the study itself:
We utilized cross-sectional data from the 2023 Violence Experiences (VEX) surveys conducted in California and Louisiana, respectively [18, 19]. These surveys assessed experiences of different forms of violence across the lifespan, as well as demographics and attitudinal variables. Both surveys are state-representative online surveys of adults age 18 + that were implemented by the survey firm NORC at the University of Chicago in Spring 2023, using their probability-based and non-probability based online panels. The 2023 California Violence Experiences survey (CalVEX) surveyed 3,560 Californian residents between March and May 2023, and the 2023 Louisiana Violence Experiences (LaVEX) polled 1,081 Louisiana residents between May and June 2023. The participation rates were 21% for the CalVEX survey and 27% for the LaVEX survey, which is within an acceptable range for online surveys to yield population-based estimates. For further details on sampling and participation, please see the CalVEX and LaVEX 2023 reports [18, 19]. The online survey took approximately 15 min to complete, and participants were compensated with the cash equivalent of approximately $4.00.
That’s right, they asked people to fill out a survey in just two states–two very, very different states with a lot of different factors at play–and reached a nearly definitive conclusion that violent spouses buy guns.
Because no one lies on a survey.
Further, there’s no differentiation in the questions regarding legal ownership or illegal ownership. They just ask if someone bought a gun and when. An abusive spouse who can’t lawfully own one because of domestic violence convictions might still be buying one illegally. That’s against the law, but should it be viewed the same as the guy who just bought a hunting rifle from a licensed dealer? Obviously not.
And they even acknowledge later in the study by saying, “While obtaining a firearm in the past year could technically have included receiving the firearm as a gift or stealing the firearm, we refer to this as ‘firearm purchase’ throughout.”
That’s a bit of an issue, don’t you think?
What’s more, let’s look at just how common this is:
One in 16 respondents (6.1%) reported IPV victimization in the past year, and 1.3% reported perpetration of IPV in that time frame. In bivariate tests, firearm ownership was reported significantly more frequently by those who reported past year IPV victimization (46.7% vs. 24.9%, p p p p
In other words, only six percent reported intimate partner violence in total, and still fewer than half of those reported gun ownership. While that appears statistically significant, again, these are two very, very different states with a lot of variations beyond just gun laws.
For example, the median income in California is significantly higher than in Louisiana. While both are warm, Louisiana is notoriously humid, which changes your attitude toward the heat. Granted, that’s difficult to account for, which is why comparing just two states like this is stupid.
The so-called researchers have no idea why this correlation exists, which is probably for the best because anything they tried to claim would be beyond stupid. I’d argue that the correlation exists because Louisiana is a gun state and California isn’t. It’s as simple as that. Especially when you’re not considering that many more people buy and own guns and do nothing of the sort.
How about instead, we put guns in the hands of women who are victimized and let nature take its course? That should take care of the domestic violence problem in short order.
What do you say?
Editor’s Note: The mainstream media and their allies in academia continue to lie about gun owners and the Second Amendment.
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