NC ranks 6th in country in rate of women slain by men

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Wednesday, October 2, 2002 4:40PM EDT

By MARTHA WAGGONER, Associated Press Writer

RALEIGH, N.C.(AP) - North Carolina ranks sixth in the country in the rate of women slain by men, and most of those women were killed with guns, according to a national study released Wednesday.

Eighty-one women were killed by men in North Carolina in 2000, according to the Violence Policy Center, a nonprofit group based in Washington, D.C., that works to reduce firearms violence. That gave the state a rate of 1.97 females per 100,000 who are murdered by males.

"This confirms what we already knew - that domestic violence is a significant problem in North Carolina," state Attorney General Roy Cooper said Wednesday. "We've taken some positive steps, but it's clear that we need to continue to do more."

The report was released to coincide with Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Many North Carolina residents, however, are already well aware of the problem, with domestic slayings at Fort Bragg gaining national attention and a two-state chase last week that began in Raleigh and ended in Brunswick County, Va., when a gun-wielding man killed his hostage - the mother of his children - and himself.

The report included all women killed by men. Of those in which the relationship was clear, 91 percent (64 of 70) were killed by someone they knew and six by a stranger. Of those 64, 43 women were wives, common-law wives, ex-wives or girlfriends of the offenders.

The Violence Policy Center blamed guns for North Carolina's high ranking. In homicides in which the weapon was identified, 72 percent of the women (53 of 74) were killed with guns.

"You guys are consistently high," said Naomi Seligman, spokeswoman for the center. "We find states with the highest female homicide rates tend to come from regions of the county where there is high gun ownership. More gun ownership equals more gun deaths."

Mary Beth Loucks-Sorrell, interim director of the N.C. Coalition Against Domestic Violence, said North Carolinians are reluctant to consider a link between firearms and domestic violence because so many people own guns.

She suggested enacting a law that prohibits the purchase or possession of firearms by a person convicted of domestic violence.

"I think looking at the role firearms play in violence against women is an important first step," she said.

But Cooper said he blamed a culture that, until recently, accepted domestic violence as a way of life.

"I think it's more of a culture of, for many years, sweeping domestic violence under the rug and not treating it as the problem that it is," he said.

That culture is changing, he said, pointing to an address confidentiality bill that he pushed and that the Legislature approved Tuesday.

Under the program, domestic violence victims can avoid putting their true addresses on public documents such as drivers' licenses and voter registration forms. Instead, they could substitute a central address at the state Attorney General's Office, where they could receive mail. The mail would then be forwarded to their actual address.

North Carolina ranked 10th in the report in 1999 and fourth in 1998. The other top 10 states are: Mississippi, Arizona, South Carolina, Tennessee, Louisiana, Arkansas, New Mexico, Nevada and Georgia.

-- Anonymous, October 03, 2002

Answers

"We find states with the highest female homicide rates tend to come from regions of the county where there is high gun ownership. More gun ownership equals more gun deaths."

No spit, Sherlock.

And if this state were famous for Bowie knives and guns were prohibited, the women would be killed by Bowie knives and they'd be just as dead. Check how they're killed in countries, like the UK, where gun ownership is strictly prohibited--you'll find they're stabbed, beaten to death, strangled, poisoned and run over by cars. If someone wants to kill another person, they're gonna do it with whatever's at hand.

-- Anonymous, October 03, 2002


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