Mass Shootings & Domestic Violence

I have gone back and forth to figure out what to say about what happened in Orlando. This weekend I moved and haven’t had my internet fully re-installed so at first I was only seeing bits and pieces of this horrible event. While any mass shooting conjures up sympathy and anger for them and their families, when I realized that this was also a specific target against people of color in the LGBTQ community I was horrified—sorry I don’t have more eloquent words to describe it.

I’m horrified by these crimes and even more upset that politicians—our representatives—refuse to act on legislation that will keep us safe because they are bound by lobbyist that know how to pull financial strings.  We often question how and why the criminal had access to weapons, but when you do enough digging you realize, oh right—there are no laws that prevented him from getting a gun.  You can be a suspected terrorist and you still have a “right” to buy an assault rifle. It boggles the mind. Whenever these crimes happen, I always think back to the show Narcos and Pablo Escobar’s creed that he used to rule with terror: Plato o plomo, silver or lead.  We’re essentially being ruled in this manner by a specific special interest group. It’s easy to see that the politicians take the plata and the rest of us take the plomo.

But beyond talking about how I feel sad and frustrated, I feel compelled to offer something; just some tinge of a solution to help make some progress–I guess I’m just tired of feeling powerless. I decided to talk about domestic violence because as detached as that may seem from the murders at Pulse, they are connected. I want to talk about this topic because it’s something I feel I have a handle on and can present coherently, but I do so with the emphasize that I do not want to diminish the voices or community that was targeted.

So, first and foremost, this was a hate crime aimed at the LGBTQ community/poc, and that we didn’t do our best to demand that our representatives pass legislation to prevent these crimes is our great and shared shamed.

It is an open secret that domestic violence is a sign that the offender has the capacity to commit greater levels of lethal violence. This article in the New York Times does a great job at showing the connection between DV and this mass shooting.  But it goes beyond Pulse, when you look at other recent shootings—there seems to be a pattern of the offender having committed acts of violence against women in his past.

Yet, instead of viewing DV as a symptom and signal for future greater harm, we diminish it. We continue to view it as a private family issue. We place blame on the victim and do the bare minimum to punish, counsel, or in some other way stabilize the offender. I cannot emphasize enough how the first step to correct these wrongs is to actually take domestic violence seriously. When we are able to prevent a violent abuser from increasing their violence or becoming embolden due to impunity we will be safer.

We can strengthen our approaches to combating DV by encouraging states to implement policies and laws that have been proven to protect survivors. We must fund shelters, programs, counseling groups to help empower survivors and provide them with the means to escape. We must create laws that treat this as a serious crime and implement a process to that deters abusers from further harassing or stalking their victims.

Of course, we must have gun control—background checks is a start and forbidding someone with who has an order of protection against them from owning weapons during the pendency and duration of the order. Surely, we can all agree that someone who has shown that they have a propensity for violence and intimidation doesn’t deserve to own a gun?

Finally, as a community we have to support survivors. Instead of questioning why survivors stay, let’s put the onus on the aggressor. Let’s support agencies and organizations that provide counseling and empowerment programs to our community. Most importantly, we should call out bad behavior when we see it—whether it be bad acts committed by celebrities or family members.  The more we support survivors in this way, the less embolden the abusers will be because they will know that they will be held accountable for their actions. It may seem disconnected, but I do think that in some way this strategic approach to abuse and gendered-violence can at least reduce the chances of future shootings in our country.

Of course I understand that DV and violence against women will not be the forefront when discussing this shooting. It’s paramount that we work hard to not let others erase the victims of this crime and their identity.  But we honor those voices and identities by demanding and creating change—we are capable of attacking this from all angles; addressing abusers and holding them accountable is, I’d argue, one appropriate step.

Here’s how to help the survivors and families in Orlando.