{"id":60638,"date":"2022-07-06T06:30:00","date_gmt":"2022-07-06T10:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thestoryexchange.org\/?p=60638"},"modified":"2022-07-06T12:25:53","modified_gmt":"2022-07-06T16:25:53","slug":"experts-talk-mass-shootings-guns-ties-domestic-violence-toxic-masculinity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thestoryexchange.org\/experts-talk-mass-shootings-guns-ties-domestic-violence-toxic-masculinity\/","title":{"rendered":"America: Where Men Do the Shooting, And Women Bear the Brunt of Gun Violence"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Police tend to a gunshot victim following a 2020 mass shooting. It’s one of hundreds of such incidents seen around the nation each year – and the perpetrators are usually men. (Credit: 400tmax<\/a>, iStockPhoto)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

(Note: This article contains disturbing imagery.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sandy Phillips has been reliving her worst nightmare since May 24.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s the day a man killed 19 children and two teachers in a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. She was especially gutted by accounts of what the shooter\u2019s weapon of choice \u2013 a semi-automatic rifle \u2013 did to his young victims. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She\u2019s been all too aware of its power ever since her daughter, Jessica Redfield Ghawi, was murdered along with 12 others in the 2012 Aurora, Colorado, movie theater shooting. James Holmes used a semi-automatic rifle, too, among other weapons. And like the parents of the students lost in Uvalde, Phillips must now live with the aftermath.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe head shot is what was so horrifying. It took half of her face away,\u201d she says, her voice full of emotion. Now, \u201cevery time I look at a picture of my daughter, I look at the left-hand side of her face \u2013 because that was taken \u2026 by somebody\u2019s ability to use bullets designed to do the most harm to the human body in war.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the wake of the Aurora tragedy, Phillips co-founded Survivors Empowered<\/a>, a support network for those directly affected by gun violence, with her husband, Lonnie. In the 10 years they\u2019ve been involved in gun-control activism and victim support, they, along with other longtime advocates, have observed patterns among the continuing violence — particularly in terms of gender. Both then and now, the vast majority<\/a> of mass shootings have been carried out by men. And it\u2019s usually women who get caught in the crossfire, experts add, both literally and figuratively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWomen are deeply affected by gun violence,\u201d says Sarah Burd-Sharps, senior director of research at gun-control advocacy nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety \u2013 not just as victims and as mothers of lost children, but also as primary caregivers<\/a> to the injured, or as nurses<\/a> and teachers<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s women \u2026 whose lives are forever altered by gun violence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She adds, \u201cIt\u2019s a crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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A Deadly \u2018Man Box\u2019<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Part of the problem is the guns themselves. As of 2018, there were roughly 120 firearms<\/a> for every 100 Americans, researchers at the Small Arms Survey found \u2013 making the U.S. the only nation in the world with more guns than people<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And men are more likely to report owning those guns<\/a> than women (39 percent vs. 22 percent, according to Pew Research Center).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But availability isn\u2019t the only issue. Male mass shooters also tend to have troubling, even violent pasts with women. The Robb Elementary School shooter, for example, frequently sent threatening messages<\/a> to women he\u2019d met on social media apps, and even shot his own grandmother before the slaughter. He\u2019s part of a larger trend \u2013 the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence found that 68 percent<\/a> of mass shooters had histories of domestic violence, and Everytown research shows that 54 percent<\/a> of mass shootings \u2013 generally defined as shootings with four or more victims \u2013 happen during domestic violence incidents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Worse still is that, for some mass shooters, misogyny itself is the motivator. Take Elliot Rodger<\/a>, who murdered six in a 2014 massacre on the campus of University of California, Santa Barbara. Before, he uploaded a video detailing his reasoning. \u201cI’ve been forced to endure an existence of loneliness, rejection, and unfulfilled desires all because girls have never been attracted to me,\u201d he said. \u201cI don’t know why you girls aren’t attracted to me, but I will punish you all for it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Robert Aaron Long<\/a> was in a similar frame of mind when he murdered eight people, six of them Asian women, who were working in salons and massage parlors in Atlanta. He cited a sex addiction as his motivation, and said that his victims had tempted him. Burd-Sharps points to such acts as manifestations of \u201cthe cultural idea that manhood is defined by violence and aggression to maintain power and strength.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One study refers to this as the \u201cman box<\/a>\u201d \u2013 a confining-yet-common phenomenon in which men are socialized from early ages to equate displays of emotion with weakness, and to instead express themselves through acts of aggression. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instigating factors \u2013 rejection, for example \u2013 can bring about \u201chorrific humiliation for some men, who feel perhaps that they\u2019ve not been able to achieve what our culture thinks is \u2018true manhood,\u2019\u201d Jacquelyn Campbell, an intimate partner violence expert at Johns Hopkins University, explains. Perpetrators also likely witnessed domestic violence growing up, or were abused themselves, she adds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The results of perpetuating these cycles and social cues can be deadly \u2013 especially when guns are involved, as they exacerbate all domestic violence incidents, regardless of the body count. Nearly 4.5 million<\/a> American women have reported being threatened with a gun by a partner, according to Everytown; nearly 1 million survivors reported being shot; and every month, roughly 70 women in America lose their lives in incidents where a gun is involved. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short: Women in the U.S. are 21 times<\/a> more likely to be murdered with a firearm than women in any other high-income nation overall, and victims of domestic violence are 5 times<\/a> more likely to die when their abusers can access firearms. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Other broad shifts \u2013 namely the Covid-19 pandemic, and restrictions on abortion \u2013 compound the problem further still, studies show, with increasing rates of violence<\/a> against girls and women seen since the start of lockdowns in 2020, and notably high<\/a> rates of murder reported among pregnant victims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, exposure to such violence \u2013 as survivors of gun-involved incidents, as members of communities affected by shootings, or simply as Americans living in a nation where there have been over 300 mass shootings<\/a> so far this year \u2013 also increases women\u2019s risks<\/a> of developing mental health conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Women of color are under particular threat in all of this \u2013 especially Black women, for whom the gun homicide rate jumped by 47 percent<\/a> between 2019 to 2020, and Indigenous women, whose tribes struggle to access<\/a> existing federal protections against domestic abusers owning guns. This is also true for members of the LGBTQ community, who are twice as likely<\/a> to be shot than heterosexual or cisgender individuals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plus, America is experiencing a groundswell of overt white supremacist speech and actions \u2013 and guns worsen that problem, too, on both small and large scales. This ideology was the motivation<\/a> for 18-year-old Payton S. Gendron, the white male shooter who murdered 10 people<\/a> and injured three others in a Buffalo, New York, grocery store earlier this year. Domestic terrorist Dylann Roof<\/a> was also enacting racist violence when he took the lives of nine Black church congregants in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015. Roof admitted that he hoped to start a race war with his actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn an average year, more than 10,300 hate crimes in the United States involve a firearm \u2014 more than 28 each day,\u201d Everytown<\/a> finds. Yet \u201cin most of the U.S., some people convicted of hate crimes can still legally buy and have guns.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Penny Okamoto, executive director of Survivors Empowered, best sums up this maelstrom of problems by pointing out that \u201cwe are not the only people who have violence \u2026 or hatred toward\u201d women and minorities \u2013 but \u201cwe\u2019re the only ones that readily arm those people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n