Women Play a Surprising Role in Mass Shootings

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Despite several recent mass shootings that might have spurred an overhaul of federal gun laws, Congress remains at an impasse. Some activists, though, are reframing the problem of gun violence in a surprising way: as an epidemic that uniquely affects women

A recent analysis of media reports and FBI data by Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety found that 51% of the mass shooting victims attacked between January 2009 and July 2014 were women. By contrast, women comprise only 13% of total gun homicide victims in the U.S. In more than half of the instances analyzed by Everytown, the shooter killed a former or current spouse, or intimate partner. In several cases the shooter had been previously charged with domestic violence. Read more...

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