Supreme Court Unanimously Rejects Challenge to Domestic Abuser Gun Law
By Penny Okamoto, Executive Director of Ceasefire Oregon
The Supreme Court has upheld a law barring people convicted of domestic violence from possessing guns.
Federal lans prohibits people convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence offenses from having guns. However different states have different definitions of domestic violence. By a 9-0 vote in United States v. Castleman, the Court rejected a challenge to this law.
Domestic violence is one of the biggest risks associated with owning a gun. A report based on FBI crime data from 2011 found that 94% of female homicide victims were murdered by a man they knew, 61% of those killers were a spouse or intimate acquaintance, and female intimate partners were more likely to be killed by a gun than any other weapon. The overwhelming majority of people killed by intimate partners are women.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/03/26/3419173/man-convicted-of-dom…