A Lethal Combination: Firearms and Intimate Partner Violence
It was a storybook love affair: the blonde, blue-eyed cheerleader and the handsome football star from small-town America. Emma Walker, a 16-year-old cheerleading standout at Central High in Knoxville, Tennessee had been dating the team’s wide-receiver, Riley Gaul, for two years.
Snapshots posted on Emma’s social media accounts painted the picture of a high school fantasy—birthdays together, a day at the lake, July 4th festivities, prom. Just like teens everywhere, they fought, broke up, and made up a dozen times. However, as the relationship grew increasingly toxic, Emma broke up with Riley—this time for good.
To win back Emma’s love, Riley went as far as staging his own kidnapping, but Emma resisted. As strange incidents escalated, Emma became afraid, tense, and asked her parents to turn on their home security system. One night, a desperate and crazed Gaul fired several shots through her bedroom wall, striking Emma while she was sleeping. She died and her dream of becoming a nurse died alongside her[i].
Emma Walker
The scenario painted above is not the plot of some sick, twisted movie airing on the Lifetime Network. It was pulled from regular newscasts after the 2018 murder of a beautiful and well-loved high school cheerleader, followed by the dramatic murder trial of the local football star.
Emma’s story is just one of hundreds of incidents taking place around the United States that point to an alarming trend—Intimate Partner Violence (IPV). International organizations such as the United Nations and the World Health Organization, and government agencies such as the U.S. National Centers for Disease Control (CDC), have taken notice.
In 2006, a study commissioned by the U.N. reported that 22% of high school students and 32% of college women have experienced IPV[ii]. An additional study by the U.N. in 2018 confirms that IPV is a global problem. Of the 87,000 women and girls killed around the world in 2017, more than half were killed by intimate partners[iii]. A 2017 fact sheet published by the CDC paints IPV as an important public health issue with wide-ranging impacts from missed workdays to post traumatic stress disorder, depression, injury, and death[iv].
“The presence of a gun makes it five times more likely domestic violence will turn deadly.” from EveryTown.org
The “World Report on Violence and Health” published in 2002 by the World Health Organization asserts, “Although women can be violent in relationships with men, and violence is also sometimes found in same-sex partnerships, the overwhelming burden of partner violence is borne by women at the hands of men […] In the United States, more murders of women are committed by guns than by all other types of weapons combined” [v].
The Power and Control Wheel
In 1984, the Domestic Violence Abuse Intervention Project, an NGO in Duluth, Minnesota, developed a tool called the Power and Control Wheel. The wheel has since been used internationally by psychologists, NGOs, and state agencies to demonstrate to law enforcement and the judicial system the strategies employed by an abuser. Most importantly, it shows victims how to recognize warning signs[vi]. The Power and Control wheel has eight spokes:
Intimidation
Emotional abuse
Isolation
Minimizing, Denying, and Blaming
Using Children
Economic Abuse
Male Privilege
Coercion and threats
The Power and Control Wheel from the National Center on Domestic and Sexual Violence
Physical and sexual assaults, or threats to commit them, are the most apparent forms of domestic violence and are usually the actions that make others aware of the problem. However, regular use of other abusive behavior by the batterer, when reinforced by one or more acts of physical violence, make up a larger system of abuse. Although physical assaults may occur only once or occasionally, they instill the threat of future violent attacks and allow the abuser to take control of the woman’s life and circumstances.
The Power and Control diagram is a particularly helpful tool in understanding the overall pattern of abusive and violent behaviors used by a batterer to establish and maintain control over his partner. Very often, one or more violent incidents are accompanied by an array of these other types of abuse. They are less easily identified, yet firmly establish a pattern of intimidation and control within the relationship.
The abuse endured by Emma Walker can be compared to several of the spokes on the Power and Control Wheel. Emma’s family and friends had, in fact, picked up on some of these warning signs:
“He became kind of controlling over her, what she did, her activities,” said Keegan Lyle, one of Emma’s closest friends. (ABC News)
“He got more possessive and more clingy towards her, and wouldn’t let her do certain things,” said fellow cheerleader Lauren Hutton. (ABC News)
He threatened, “You’re dead to me… I’ll check the obituary… F&%# you,” (ABC News) and belittled, “I hate you I hate everything about you… you’re the biggest bitch I’ve ever come in contact with.” (ABC News)
It is not clear whether or not Gaul had physically abused Walker, but it is clear that he had hit several of the markers that psychologists look for in identifying emotional abuse and intimidation by a partner.
The Cycle of Violence
Recently, Cosmopolitan magazine published a chilling account from a victim whose spouse used his firearm to not only threaten, but terrorize his partner.
According to the account, shortly after Sophie moved in with her boyfriend, Sam, he had bought a firearm. Sophie could not understand why Sam wanted a gun, but reports claimed that he acted responsibly. Sam got a legal firearm permit, kept the gun locked in a safe, and stored the bullets separately.
Soon, the gun started appearing in the middle of heated arguments. “Without a word, he’d head into the bedroom, open the safe, and reappear with the gun […] Sometimes, he’d place it on the kitchen table; other times, he’d slowly load and unload it,” Sophie said. The gun was also brought out during the nights Sam was drunk. As the situation between Sam and Sophie became more volatile, he started pointing the gun at her, and also dry-fired at the ceiling [vii].
In the case of Gaul, for every nasty text he sent to Walker, there was an apology. “Emma, I’m sorry for however I act,” one message from Gaul said. “I love you more than words can describe,” said another. (ABC News)
Like Gaul, the next day, Sam would be full of apologies and promises to never take the gun out again, but he never kept his word. Both Sam and Riley were perpetrators of the theory behind the “cycle of abuse.” This theory describes the phases an abusive relationship moves through, in the lead up to a violent event as well as the repetitive nature of the batterer’s tactics. Renowned psychologist Dr. Lenore Walker, Professor Emerita of the Nova Southeastern University, developed this theory in 1979.
According to Dr. Walker, the cycle of abuse has three phases:
A buildup of tension
A violent episode
Remorse/“honeymoon period”
Coercive Control
Without firing one shot, Sam slowly eroded Sophie’s self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-respect. She feared for her life. This fear tactic behind Sam’s behavior is called coercive control, a theory popularized by psychologist Evan Stark, Professor Emeritus at Rutgers University.
In his book, Coercive Control: The Entrapment of Women in Personal Life, Stark explains that domestic abuse does not have to involve black eyes, lacerations, and broken bones. Drawing on court records, interviews, and FBI statistics, Stark asserts that coercive control is neither domestic nor necessarily violent, but is a pattern of controlling behaviors with similarities to “terrorism and hostage-taking.”
In 2015, the government of the United Kingdom created a new law, making coercive control a crime. The statute is covered under Section 76 of the Serious Crime Act 2015.
The mind of an abuser
Domestic violence is learned behavior. Most men who abuse their partners were exposed to violence as children. The study, “Characteristics of Domestic Violence Offenders: Associations with Childhood Exposure to Violence,” stated that, “the differences in generality, frequency, and severity of violent offenses, nonviolent criminal behavior, and psychopathology within a battering population of 1,099 adult males with varying levels of exposure to violence as children. Generality, frequency, and severity of violence and psychopathology all increased as the level of childhood exposure to violence increased”[viii].
In 2018, CNN’s Chris Cuomo visited a court-ordered program for convicted abusers. Cuomo underscored the varied backgrounds. The convicted abusers consisted of construction workers, restaurant workers, blue-collar workers, white-collar workers, and even a medical doctor[ix].
CNN also interviewed a reformed batterer in 2015 who, despite being socially and economically privileged, saw his father verbally and physically abuse his mother. In high school, he saw a student hit his girlfriend so hard that she bled. He confessed to abusive behaviors towards his partner such as threats, pouring water over her, throwing objects at her, ripping up her favorite photos, and punching her[x].
In 2009, talk show host Oprah Winfrey interviewed other admitted abusers, one of whom told the talk show host that the first time he hit his wife was in a jealous rage. He admits to choking her, as well as sitting on her belly while she was pregnant, in an attempt to kill her and the baby. The abuser went on to admit that when everything seemed to be falling apart in his life, he would turn to abusing his wife to regain a sense of control. “I felt like I had power and control over something in my life,” he said. “I grew up in an abusive household, so I didn’t know how to verbally communicate with my wife without putting her down. I didn’t know how to verbally disagree with her and say, ‘We don’t see eye to eye,’ and be okay with that”[xi].
In the U.S., gun violence disproportionately affects women, as they make up 80% of the victims of domestic violence homicides. Between 2001 and 2012, more than 6,000 women were murdered by their partners. To put this in perspective, this number is higher than the number of troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The loopholes that currently exist within the Federal Law, which allow convicted batterers to hold onto their guns, need to be repaired. While 30 states have already taken action to keep guns out of the hands of batterers, other states need to enact similar legislation in order to save lives.
By Fern White-Hilsenrath
Illustrations done in collaboration with the New Media Artspace at Baruch College. The New Media Artspace is a teaching exhibition space in the Department of Fine and Performing Arts at Baruch College, CUNY. Housed in the Newman Library, the New Media Artspace showcases curated experimental media and interdisciplinary artworks by international artists, students, alumni, and faculty. Special thanks to docent Maya Hilbert for creating artwork for this piece.
Check the New Media Artspace out at http://www.newmediartspace.info/