This toolkit from the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence and Firearms, a project of the Battered Women's Justice Project, provides advocates with tools for engaging conversations, both locally and on the state level, on the impact of firearms on domestic violence victim-survivors, particularly during periods of wide-spread crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
The toolkit underscores that legal protections for survivors can have true protective power when supported by everyone in a community—both within the legal system and outside of it. The spike in firearm sales driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, combined with the increased vulnerability of many domestic violence victims during this period, created new opportunities for engagement and conversation around intimate partner firearm-related homicide, and the role of different community members in providing pathways to safety for victim-survivors.
