With October being Domestic Violence Awareness Month, the Violence Policy Center (VPC) has released a new study called When Men Murder Women: An Analysis of 2014 Homicide Data.
The study finds that black women who are murdered by men are nine times out of ten murdered by someone they know, and the most common murder instrument is a gun, with 57% of black women killed by a gun in cases where the murder weapon could be identified. What’s more, the relationship black women had to their murderer was usually intimate, with 57% being wives, ex-wives, common-law wives, or girlfriends of the men who killed them.
In cases where the circumstances behind the murder could be identified, 84% of black women were killed in cases not related to the commission of any other felony, with the cases most often occurring as women were killed in the course of a disagreement or argument.
“The facts speak for themselves, the corporate gun lobby promotes firearms as a means to personal safety. The VPC research exposes the truth that guns in a domestic abuse household are the means of abuse, not safety,” Julia Wyman, executive director of States United to Prevent Gun Violence, said of the findings.
“Violence against women is a national crisis with a particularly devastating impact on black women,” said VPC Legislative Director Kristen Rand.