“It’s not always an issue of being shot,” says Teresa Garvey, a former prosecutor and attorney advisor for AEquitas, a prosecutor’s resource for domestic violence law. “[Guns are] used to make threats, to back up threats, or to add to the environment of intimidation.”17 They are used as blunt force instruments, and as reminders of who holds the power. Like Donte Lewis, who hit his girlfriend so hard with his gun, she foamed at the mouth. Thirty-three thousand domestic violence firearm incidents occur annually in the United States—far exceeding the number of intimate partner homicides.18 Guns
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