Mike Levin: “just last year the Congress passed and President Clinton signed into law the Violence Against Women Act of 2000. The law…”

“just last year the Congress passed and President Clinton signed into law the Violence Against Women Act of 2000. The law instituted welcome changes in Federal criminal law relating to stalking, domestic abuse and sex offense cases. In addition, VAWA 2000 created programs to prevent sexual assaults on college campuses, establish transitional housing for victims of domestic abuse and enhance protections for elderly and disabled victims of domestic violence. The importance of the Violence Against Women Act should not be underestimated. However, if we are to comprehensively address this issue, we cannot ignore the impact of gun violence on women. According to studies cited by the Violence Policy Center, in 1998, in homicides where the weapon was known, 50 percent of female homicide victims were killed with a firearm. Of those murdered women, more than three quarters were killed with a handgun. And that same year, for every one time that a woman used a handgun to kill in self-defense, 101 women were murdered by a handgun. While the firearms industry markets gun to women--asserting that owning a gun will make women safer--the statistics support the point made by Karen Brock, an analyst with the Violence Policy Center, ``Handguns don't offer women protection; they guarantee peril.''”