Kara S Alaimo, Columnist

Women Should Be at Vanguard of the Gun-Control Movement

Murders by firearms by husbands, boyfriends and other male partners surpass the number of victims of mass shootings.

May 30, 2018 at 4:23 PM UTC

Kara Alaimo is an associate professor of communication at Fairleigh Dickinson University. She is the author of “Over the Influence: Why Social Media Is Toxic for Women and Girls — and How We Can Take It Back.”

Another atrocity.
Photographer: Daniel Kramer/AFP/Getty Images

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The mass shooting at a school in Texas on May 18 brought renewed calls for stricter gun-control laws. This focus should include another, less-visible, aspect of the crisis: The killing by firearms of hundreds of women each year by their intimate partners.

It’s clear that gun control is a women’s issue. Of the 39,000 gun deaths in America In 2016, 456 were from mass shootings. But, on average, more than 561 women are killed by these weapons each year by their husbands, ex-husbands, common-law husbands or boyfriends, according to the Associated Press.