No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us

by Rachel Louise Snyder

“Eleven of the fourteen men who used a gun said that they would not have killed if the gun were not available,” Adams told the committee. “Many serious abusers already have the motive to kill their intimate partner or ex-partner; let’s stop making it so easy for them to have the means to do so.”20 Kit Gruelle told me this was the most significant misunderstanding about guns and domestic violence. “[Guns] increase women’s danger exponentially,” she told me. “Until a gun comes into the relationship, she still feels like she has some capacity to deal with what’s going on, whether it’s to run, to lock the bedroom door, or whatever.”21 The pro-gun argument that asks women to arm themselves is asking them to behave as their abusers behave, Gruelle notes. Such views have conscripted the narrative, putting the blame on victims for not doing all they could to protect themselves. “It’s not a character flaw if [women] don’t have a natural tendency to turn and fire on the father of [their] children,” she said. Gruelle told me that if she had ever pulled a gun on her abusive husband “he’d have taken it away and laughed at it.”