Who Voted Agains the Violence Agains Women Act
Dean Obeidallah, a sometime attorney, is the host of SiriusXM radio'southward daily program "The Dean Obeidallah Show" and a columnist for The Daily Beast. Follow him @DeanObeidallah. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. View more than opinion manufactures on CNN.
(CNN)On Wednesday, with the nation still reeling from news of the horrific shooting rampage in Atlanta that took the lives of viii people, seven of them women, the Autonomous-controlled Firm of Representatives voted to reauthorize the Violence Against Woman Act (VAWA). Yet 172 House Republicans voted no on extending this landmark law, effectively choosing to protect a homo's correct to buy a gun over protecting the life of a woman.
The law, co-authored in 1994 past then-Sen. Joe Biden and last reauthorized in 2013, was designed to protect women from domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking through a broad array of programs, from creating a national domestic violence hotline to funding shelters for women to providing preparation on gender-based violence. The law, which has been re-authorized various times to update and aggrandize protections over the years, expired in 2019 after the GOP controlled Senate at the time refused to consider the measure but Congress still appropriated temporary funding for the programs/grants under the purview of the VAWA. The need for this constabulary to be reauthorized is even more acute today given the alarming uptick in domestic violence cases during Covid-19-related closures.
Still, only 29 House Republicans voted with Democrats to continue this national program to reduce violence against women. I won't be and then glib every bit to say that these 172 House Republicans don't care about women, peculiarly since some of those voting no included women like Rep. Liz Cheney.
So why would they vote against the legislation, despite a 2019 report finding that women in the United states are being killed past "intimate partners" (husbands, boyfriends, or exes) at a gruesome rate of near iv a day — upwards from the iii that had been the daily decease price for decades before. (Yeah, four women are killed daily.)
One key reason is that they agree with the National Rifle Association's opposition to a proposed provision in the constabulary that would close what is known equally the "boyfriend loophole." Pursuant to a federal law enacted in 1996 — unrelated to the VAWA — those bedevilled of domestic violence against a current or former spouse are prohibited from legally purchasing a firearm.
The new VAWA mensurate would extend that prohibition to "boyfriends" who have been convicted of stalking, assaulting a dating partner or who had a restraining order issued confronting them for their actions regarding their girlfriend or ex. Given that FBI information indicates that a boyfriend is nearly as probable equally a husband to kill an intimate partner, closing this loophole could salve lives.
Some Business firm Republicans said they opposed the bill because it extended protections to transgender Americans who have been abused by intimate partners. Arizona Rep. Debbie Lesko said the law pushed "leftist gender ideology" by requiring shelters to house men forth with vulnerable women.
While it's beyond words that these Republicans would turn their dorsum on vulnerable people in need, it was ending the "young man loophole" that caused the greatest pushback. GOP Rep. Bob Skillful of Virginia stated that the proposed version of the VAWA "makes it clear that Democrats consider gun ownership a second-class correct." And Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia wants more, not fewer guns in our nation, stating, "If you lot want to protect women, make certain women are gun owners and know how to defend themselves. That'due south the greatest defense for women."
But think for a moment about the real-globe scenario of the "fellow loophole." If a homo who has been convicted of stalking his girlfriend all of a sudden wants to purchase his first firearm, should that be allowed? This is especially truthful considering data that directly links firearms with deadly instances of domestic violence.
Co-ordinate to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, the presence of a gun in domestic violence situations tin increment the risk of homicide for women as much as 500%. In addition, abusers with firearms are v times more than likely to kill their victims given the like shooting fish in a barrel access to a deadly weapon. In fact, a 2019 report published in the American Periodical of Preventive Medicine found women killed by intimate partners are more likely to be murdered with a firearm than past all other means combined.
Closing the "young man loophole" would not only save the lives of woman, but as well of others, including police officers. That was the very bespeak made in 2019 by Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo afterward a Houston police officeholder was shot and killed when responding to a domestic violence incident by a homo who had previously been bedevilled of violence confronting his girlfriend. If the loophole had been closed when House Democrats kickoff pushed to end it, the boyfriend would not have legally been able to purchase a gun.
While the Atlanta shooting rightly commands the headlines, our nation has a daily epidemic of violence against women. Closing the boyfriend loophole should not have been partisan, just rather a mensurate that Republicans and Democrats took in unison.
Instead, 172 Republicans chose ensuring that a man — even 1 convicted of stalking or assault — can buy a gun over protecting women from gun violence. What more will it take for these Republicans to put the rubber of women first?
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/21/opinions/republicans-vote-against-vawa-women-obeidallah/index.html
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