Federal Gun Law Enforcement at the Intersection of Domestic Violence and Firearms

Bob Davis

Patchwork is a podcast from the Office on Violence Against Women at the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington. Patchwork offers a glimpse behind the scenes of a legal movement called the Violence Against Women Act, or VAWA. VAWA provides federal grants to help women at local, state and national levels. Patchwork explains how VAWA awards are made, shows what happens after funds arrive in communities and share stories of help and hope. Patchwork brings you the voices of people on the frontlines combating domestic and sexual violence. Our efforts to serve victims and hold offenders accountable create stories that knit us together and propel us forward.

Welcome to Patchwork. 

David Keck

There's a predictability of who might become dangerous with a gun and when that becomes predictable, it then becomes preventable. 

How do we effectively keep those firearms out of the hands of individuals is identified as probably likely to be violent.

Studies have shown that is going to result in a reduction in homicide.

Bob Davis

As the nation looks for ways to prevent mass shootings, experts have spotted a common thread in more than half of the tragedies, domestic violence. Analysis of shootings where multiple victims were targeted, separating out what are commonly called drive-by shootings, where bullets are sprayed from a moving car, shooters who kill family members, coworkers and others who cross are enraged path are predominantly men, many with a history of domestic violence. A top priority at the Department of Justice is to prevent violent crime so DOJ supports enforcement of the laws that take guns away from people convicted of domestic violence. U.S. Attorneys are spearheading efforts across the nation to ensure that these laws are strictly enforced to protect people in their communities. Unfortunately, these laws are not enforced consistently across the nation. Some local law enforcement agencies are better than others in making sure a person convicted of domestic violence surrenders his weapons as required by law. To assist communities that are trying to better enforce these laws. Funding from the Office of Violence Against Women helped create the National Domestic Violence and Firearms Resource Center in 2013. In 2016, the center introduced the Safer Families Safer Communities website to address the intersection of domestic violence and firearms. 

Today, we're joined by David Keck, who is the Project Director for the Resource Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. David provides training and technical assistance on enforcement and implementation of firearms prohibitions. His bio is on the show notes on our website but I want to note that David is a former public defender who still practices criminal defense and family law. He has also served for nine years as court commissioner for Winnebago County in Wisconsin and helped craft that state's protocol for removing guns from the hands of people who are convicted of domestic abuse. David joins us by phone. David, thanks for taking the time to chat with us today.

David Keck

Sure.

Bob Davis

We have a lot to talk about, so I'm just going to jump right into it. Why do people reach out? What gets a community's attention and motivates them to contact you?

David Keck

Well, unfortunately, sometimes it's in the aftermath of a tragedy and that's what we try to avoid. But it's the reality. I mean, there are communities where someone has been hurt or killed with a firearm, it's sort of in the aftermath that someone or somebody says “what we do to prevent this from happening again.” That's not the only ones, there are a lot of people out there who are saying “we need to do something about this before it happens in our community”. Yeah, it's a lot of different people, it takes somebody who says it's wrong, we don't we don't think that that people should have firearms if they're if they can determine it to be dangerous, what can we do to take those guns away or keep guns out of their hands? And so it's really a mixture of a lot of different people.

Bob Davis

It's an opportunity for prevention and it sounds like what you're saying is when people recognize that that exists and they look for a way to deal with it, that's really a way that they can try and reduce violent crime in their community.

David Keck

That's exactly right. People recognize that. Research has been done on it. And there is a predictability of who might become dangerous with a gun and when that becomes predictable, it then becomes preventable. And so that's really, I guess, sort of the very core of what this is all about. 

Bob Davis

You know, that's a great point. These, some of these research reviews of mass shootings recently have found that domestic violence really is a common thread in, you know, half or more of these mass shootings ever over recent years. That seems to be what you're speaking about, that it is, there is a predictability here. 

David Keck

Yes, there's a predictability. Yeah. Mass shootings are a very, very interesting topic. If you want, we can dive into that. 

Bob Davis

Yeah, I would. I mean, I really I…to me, it's very interesting that to look at some of these mass shooting episodes in hindsight, over recent years, we folks have done I as a layman, I had thought that mental illness would be the common thread. And it's really interesting to see that domestic violence is something that is in there and some of these researchers have called for better enforcement of these gun laws.

David Keck

Right, so if you want to take a few minutes to talk about that.

Bob Davis

Please.

David Keck

We probably should clarify some terms here. Mass shooting is really a sort of an inaccurate label for this phenomenon, at least in my opinion. So most people say a mass shooting is three or more, or four or more people shot in the same incident by the same shooter, that's the mass shooting definition. There is a large percentage of this type of shooting incident that has no known shooter. That is an epidemic and it happens on the streets, mostly in the inner cities, it's like what they call a drive by shooting. And I think if you if you follow something like a mass shooting tracker, you'll see there's probably 30 or 40 percent of the mass shootings have no known shooter. So there's that there's that phenomenon out there. That's not what we're talking about when we're talking about DV and mass shootings. The largest percentage of mass shootings that take place in our country that are DV-related also don't make the news. Generally speaking, it's a man who shoots children or is his girlfriend or a wife or ex-wife. Children first and then shoots her and then shoots himself. That's probably the most common mass shooting. Again, that's not really what the public talks about, the public talks about this third area of mass shootings where someone shoots people that are out in public, in a restaurant, at a theater or wherever that happens. The police are involved. The police sometimes are victims of these too. Strangers are frequently shot at the same time. That is what, I think the public thinks when the public talks of mass shooting. The media, I think, talked about those as well. Those are, again, interesting and as you said, interestingly enough, that that subcategory is about, as you say, about half of those are somehow related even to the reader. Domestic violence is either the catalyst for the event or there is history of the shooter having domestic violence perpetration in their background. Again, these are these are primarily men that do this. So that's kind of what I think the public is really focused on. Try to remind people that the majority of these mass shootings are they take place inside someone’s residence. Usually it takes place in the victim’s home where she's at home with her children. Twenty five percent of mass shooting victims are children and usually the shooter knows them. So what kind of captures the public imagination here is this potential that that as a citizen of the country, we could walk into a public place and we'd be shot by somebody who is really motivated by domestic violence, and I think that's definitely a concern. I think it is in some ways the mindset of the individual who is going to, for example, exert control over his intimate partner is in lots of ways the same mindset as the individual who commits a mass shooting. There's a need or I think there's a kind of a need for that exercise of control. It's kind of an uncontrolled anger issue. And it's there's an overlap and the similarity between those types of the individual, I think is something that ultimately will be, I think, somehow scientifically, psychologically documented at this point, I don't think we have known about it but I think it's a kind of on a common sense level. I think that the motivations are kind of the same. 

Bob Davis

So, Dave, when you say that I agree that there may not be sufficient scientific evidence for us to state that as strongly as we would like, but there's something intuitive about what you just described. I really picture almost layers here as we as we look at a community and we look at someone who is a potential threat. There is what I was just envisioning when you were talking is a mental health layer. And then there's the criminal justice layer. And you were talking about this person's mindset, the control, the anger that somewhat could be somewhat predictive of a violent attack and I just I just begin to think about this as an intervention point with criminal justice. It’s a little bit different than mental health. If we if we see something, say something in our community, it seems like criminal justice in domestic violence is an opportunity for us to act.

You know, as the nation seeks to find some remedy, some solution to the gun violence problem, it strikes me that you're talking about something that we're all looking for, a common sense approach, something that is recognizable, something that is actionable. What is it like when a community comes to you and says, we want to do something about this? What can we do? What kind of tools do you have for them?

David Keck

Well, that's a great question. We generally start with on what are your state laws look like? Let's take a look at your statute and see what it says.

So many of the of the communities that we worked with over the past two years have come in with a lot of expectations that they're going to get this taken care of. And a lot of them end up sort of falling off of the radar because somewhere along the line, they run into some resistance that they can't overcome. And this is a kind of a big topic for us. It's very frustrating.

I can tell you that there are only about probably three or objections that you hear. But you hear every line in every community. It's the same objections you hear every single time.

The first one is you hear every place you go is it is a storage. How do we take those guns away and how are we going to store those guns? There's other things to talk about. There are other things like maybe funding or something that but I can tell you funding isn't necessarily an issue anywhere. And people put up stuff like legal challenges but these have all been dealt with. Storage is the biggest one. The inertia that people have about just not wanting to do it and some people also say, “well, it's not clear from our statue who is really responsible. The sheriff, the police department, is it the court?” These are all very, very simple questions to answer. But those are the sort of the same arguments that you hear everywhere you go, storage is like number one and it's really a non-issue.

Bob Davis

It's a non-issue because once people start to think about it and find the resources, it's doable? 

David Keck

Well, here's the thing. So I was a I was a public defender for a number of years, for thirteen years, and I was a court officer for ten years, so I kind of have been in this in this legal world for a number of years. I can tell you if a deputy, sheriff's deputy, for example, goes out to serve a warrant on somebody for being a felon in possession of firearms and arrests him, searches a house with a search warrant, finds thirty five guns, they would take those guns, show it to the five o'clock news at night, put them out there, and then find a way to store them. I’ve seen people’s cars impounded as evidence. I've seen boats. I see a huge objects that they’ve taken in and they never say in a criminal case we can’t store them. From my perspective, if a county or community has to rent a warehouse to fill with illegal guns, that would be a really good problem to have. I mean, I think that would be a good problem, to have more guns than they can store. Taking those guns out of people's hands, you know, studies have shown that there's going to, that is going to result in a reduction in homicide. And probably mass shootings like we're talking about and officers being killed. 

Bob Davis

It's been a while since I took a gun class. I grew up in Texas. I grew up around guns. One of the themes of gun instruction that I got was, you must be a law abiding citizen.

David Keck

Right. Right.

Bob Davis

It seems like we're on the same page in this country, whether no matter what side of the gun debate you're on, that we want to be in a law abiding society. 

David Keck

Exactly. The concept of what does it what does a survivor of domestic violence do, that's such a complicated formula to start with. When you introduce firearms in there, you add a whole additional very heavy layer to the sort of the options of analysis that have an advocate or survivor has to go do or a survivor by herself has to go through on. You know, talking to a survivor of domestic violence about guns is something that it's a very complicated matter. Children are in danger. The police officers are in danger because they respond. Family members could be in danger. These are these are important conversations to have with the victim, but it's important at the same time not to put the survivor in a position of having to protect everybody else from the guy with the gun. The guy with the gun is the one who really should be bearing the burden of the responsibility here. So, again, what do you do on the street level, what do you do on an individual basis when you have domestic violence and you have a firearm? That is such a complicated analysis that people have to go through, but the reality is the survivor will do whatever they think makes them feel safest and sometimes that's going to the police, sometimes that’s going to court and asking for protection order. Sometimes it’s doing nothing, sometimes it’s running away. Sometimes it's talking to a family member about it. It all depends on what they think is going to make them the safest. I should say presents the least amount of danger to them. But there is no easy formula. There's no easy answer for those people. 

Bob Davis

It's not easy, but what I think of as you're saying that, Dave, is in this MeToo era, the post Cosby, post Weinstein era, where we're more aware as a society about the impact of sexual violence on the vulnerable. And if we want to help survivors, as you were speaking, I was just thinking I was talking to a survivor recently who was telling me about the fear of a gun being in the hands of her attacker, who knows where she lives and knows where she works. And if we can help as a community, it seems like there is a responsibility to just enforce the laws that are on the books to offer them a level of protection to try and mitigate that fear. 

David Keck

I completely agree with you about that. And if you get a solution to how to do that, I would love to hear it. I’m not trying to be funny about that, I'm serious about that. All right? 

Bob Davis

We'll throw that out to our podcast listeners. That's why we're doing this, because we want to expand this conversation. We don't have all the answers, but we are all aware that this is a problem. And as we've seen with recent events, studies, we have more knowledge and if one community can learn from the tragedy of another. You said communities come to you after they've had a tragedy. If before a tragedy happens if we can learn best practices, if we can recognize that this actually does reduce violent crime. 

David Keck

Right. And, you know, if it really starts with, in my opinion, it starts with the judiciary. It starts with the legal system. If you're in a state where the state law requires the court to order the respondent to surrender firearms then that's what the courts should be doing.

I think it's at the same time, this is something that I talk about a lot: don't build an expectation in a survivor of domestic violence that guns are going to be taken away if she files for a protection order because that may not be happening in your community. Your local court may not be doing that so if you build up that expectation, there is a real danger that survivors, if they start pursuing somebody's gun, are going to put themselves in more danger. I do believe, ultimately, the public sentiment is going to, at some point, tip where people are willing to embrace this and look for solutions to this but I just don't think we're there yet. What's missing throughout the country is just the will to implement these. And I've said that I don't know how many times, I've said over and over again, “If you have the will to do this, you can do it and you can do it legally and can do it fairly. You can do it where you don’t offend anybody's constitutional right.” I think you can reduce the probability of domestic homicide taking place. 

I think there's another layer of complexity here. There are statistics, there are numbers that we can gather and we analyze those about how many intimate partner homicides take place, how many intimate partners are shot with a gun. What we don't know is how many people are coercively controlled in their lives by the presence of a firearm that may never be loaded or may never even be fired. But is still present in the home or in the situation where complete control is being made certain just by the presence of a gun.

Bob Davis

That's a great point.

David Keck

The analogy here is a bank robbery, you can commit a bank robbery by walking into the lobby with a gun. You don’t have to point it at anyone or shoot it. The very presence of a gun is enough to intimidate everybody naturally to comply with their demand.

Bob Davis

That's a great point. So I just want to ask you one more question. If a community has is mustering that will to act, it looks like they can come to you and they can get a lot of tools, talking points, protocols. In a nutshell, what do you have to offer? If I'm in a community and I think we may have enough stars lining up to really make a difference here, what can you do to help me?

David Keck

We offer them the full range. We don't charge anything for them. That's what we do. We can do a consultation by phone. We can come out to your community. We can put together trainings.  We can put together a protocol process, meetings, anything you want to do. We're prepared to do any of that. We can offer you resources that you can look into. We can do that. You can always consult with us and any at any level whether it’s a phone call, whether it's a meeting or anything like that, we're committed to doing this. This is what we do. And we I think we've got a lot of helpful solutions to a lot of these problems and we're willing to work with anybody and everybody that wants to come forward and put this into place.

Bob Davis

Sounds like it's an open door. Can just anyone call you?

David Keck

Yes. Yes.

Bob Davis

OK. Excellent, Dave. Thank you very much for your time. Really appreciate it.

David Keck

Thank you. 

Bob Davis

Thank you for listening to Patchwork. Please let us know what you would like to hear on a future episode by sharing your questions with us. You can tweet us, at @OVWJustice. Send an e-mail to patchwork@usdoj.gov or give us a call at (202) 307-6026. If you like this podcast, please help us expand the conversation by sending this episode to someone you think may enjoy hearing what we shared. And if you would like to help us reach even more people. Please take a minute to review this episode. 

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