The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV) applauds the bipartisan group of Senators negotiating the gun violence prevention framework for including provisions relating to firearm access by adjudicated abusers. Most women murdered in the United States are killed by intimate partners and most women murdered by intimate partners are killed with firearms. Although most intimate partner homicides are committed by dating partners, federal laws restricting access to firearms by adjudicated abusers applies only to current/former spouses, cohabitants, and people who share a child in common: it leaves out people in dating relationships.

Says Ruth M. Glenn, NCADV’s President/CEO, “In addition to using firearms to kill, domestic abusers regularly use firearms as tools with which to exert power and coercive control. We are thrilled that the framework expands existing federal law to cover people who are or have been in a continuing relationship of a romantic or intimate nature but are not married, do not live together and do not share a child in common. This is a commonsense measure that will close a deadly loophole.”

NCADV looks forward to reviewing the text of the proposal, and we urge the Senate to close the dating loophole in the final package.