In the broader scheme of American's gun problems, domestic violence might not seem like the most urgent piece of the puzzle. After all, the United States bore witness to hundreds of public mass shootings last year, including high-profile terrorist attacks in Charleston and San Bernardino. But a new report from two gun control groups serves as a reminder that domestic violence actually accounts for a huge share of gun deaths in America. These incidents are also some of the easiest to predict and prevent, with abusers leaving a trail of 911 calls and other hints that trouble might be coming. And while policymakers have crafted laws in hopes of keep guns out of the hands of abusers, the report suggests they're riddled with loopholes and bedeviled by poor enforcement.

The authors—the Consortium for Risk-Based Firearm Policy and Prosecutors Against Gun Violence—offer a prescription for how to plug up those gaps. The report serves as a solid goal post for states with lax laws and those struggling to enforce decent ones. But even the folks behind the recommendations concede they won't tackle domestic gun violence alone, which speaks to the ongoing and existential challenge posed by the patchwork of weak gun laws in America.

After all, domestic gun violence is "a multi-pronged problem," according to Hollye Dexter, an activist with Women Against Gun Violence. "We've got to come at it from a lot of different directions."

Domestic gun violence often involves a man killing his current or former partner or family, and almost never makes the news like random public shootings. But these tragedies take a toll: Of 2,707 female homicide victims in 2013, nearly half were related to or involved with the killer. Going by recent FBI data, over half of such "partner-related" murders would have been shootings. According to the gun control advocacy group Every Town for Gun Safety, domestic incidents also made up a disproportionate number—57 percent—of mass shootings under the FBI definition (at least four people shot dead in one incident) between 2009 and 2015. Eighty-one percent of the victims in those shootings were women and children.

http://www.vice.com/read/a-new-report-shows-just-how-hard-it-is-to-keep-guns-away-from-domestic-abusers