The Intersection of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) and Firearm Threats: Explicit and Implicit Threats in the Lives of IPV Victims

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Half of all women in the United States will experience intimate partner violence (IPV) in their lifetime.¹Ruth W. Leemis et al., “The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey: 2016/2017 Report on Intimate Partner Violence,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, October 2022, https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/124646. The presence of a firearm significantly increases the risk of fatal outcomes in IPV cases,²Susan B. Sorenson and Douglas J. Wiebe, “Weapons in the Lives of Battered Women,” American Journal of Public Health 94, no. 8 (2004): 1412–17, http://dx.doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.94.8.1412. with firearms used in approximately 50 percent of all IPV-related homicides.³Violence Policy Center, “When Men Murder Women: An Analysis of Homicide Data,” 2022, https://www.vpc.org/studies/wmmw202M.pdf; April M. Zeoli, Rebecca Malinski, and Brandon Turchan, “Risks and Targeted Interventions: Firearms in Intimate Partner Violence,” Epidemiologic Reviews 38, no. 1 (2016): 125–39, https://doi.org/10.1093/epirev/mxv007. 

Research on firearms in the context of IPV has largely focused on the critically important issues of homicide and near-homicide.⁴Jacquelyn C. Campbell et al., “Intimate Partner Homicide: Review and Implications of Research and Policy,” Trauma, Violence, & Abuse 8, no. 3 (2007): 246–69, https://doi.org/10.1177/1524838007303505; Jill T. Messing et al., Preventing Intimate Partner Homicide: The Long Road Ahead,” Homicide Studies 26, no. 1 (2022): 91-105, https://doi.org/10.1177/10887679211048492. However, it is equally critical to acknowledge the pervasive use of firearms to threaten, coerce, and intimidate victims.⁵TK Logan, Kellie Lynch, and Robert Walker, “Exploring Control, Threats, Violence and Help-Seeking among Women Held at Gunpoint by Abusive Partners,” Journal of Family Violence 37, no. 1 (2022): 59–73, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-021-00284-3; Tami P. Sullivan and Nicole H. Weiss, “Is Firearm Threat in Intimate Relationships Associated with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms Among Women?” Violence and Gender 4, no. 2 (2017): 31–36, https://doi.org/10.1089/vio.2016.0024; Rob Valente and Rachel Graber, “Firearms, Domestic Violence, and Dating Violence: Abusers’ Use of Firearms Violence to Exert Coercive Control and Commit Intimate Partner Homicides,” In Robert Geffner et al. (Eds.), Handbook of Interpersonal Violence and Abuse Across the Lifespan: A project of the National Partnership to End Interpersonal Violence Across the Lifespan (NPEIV) (2022): 2815–37, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89999-2_165. This non-lethal use of firearms creates an environment of fear and serves as another means by which abusers exert control over their intimate partners. However, this phenomenon has received relatively less attention from the research community. 

The Study

To fill these critical knowledge gaps, we designed a study to understand how firearm exposure plays out in the daily lives of women experiencing IPV, identify factors that may influence the chances that they will be threatened with a firearm, and subsequently evaluate how firearm threats affect women’s health. Women who experienced physical or repeated psychological IPV by their male romantic partner in the past three months were eligible to participate in this study. 

Study Design

1. Initial interview
2. Daily self-report surveys via smartphone app for 90 days
3. Follow-up interview and access to administrative data

We recruited 260 women from three urban communities and surrounding towns during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although we intended also to recruit participants directly from the courts and domestic violence services providers, we recruited fewer women from these settings because of pandemic-related closures. We caution readers against generalizing these findings to those engaged with the justice system or with domestic violence service providers, for whom the prevalence of firearm threat and related experiences is higher.

Participants were, on average, 38.5 years old, and more than half had some post-secondary education. During the initial interview, 83 percent of women were in a relationship with their partner, half were living with their partner, and nearly one-third had experienced a partner breakup at least once in the past three months. Additionally, 50 percent of women described their relationship as both “consistent, stable, and solid” and “rocky and unstable.”

Racial and Ethnic Background (% of Participants)

Breadth of Firearm Exposure

In total, 35 percent of women experienced either implicit or explicit firearm threats by an intimate partner in their lifetime, with an average of nine separate incidents. Explicit threats were direct threats made to the victim with actions or words while the partner was holding a gun or had it on his person, whereas implicit threats were ways in which the partner threatened, coerced, or intimidated a victim with a firearm without an explicit action or without an explicit verbal threat (see figure of lifetime threat endorsement). Fifteen percent of women in this sample also reported having experienced a firearm threat in their current relationship.

About 20 percent of women told us that their partner had a gun at some point in their relationship. Regardless of gun ownership, 36 percent of women said it would be “very easy” for their partner to obtain a gun, and 42 percent said their partner could get one in less than a day if he wanted to. One in four women said that their current partner would be willing to use a gun against them—most often to “scare, intimidate or threaten” them and “to avoid a breakup or to keep [them] from leaving the relationship.”

“In the past…he just told me that he would shoot me, so I would just never take anything like that lightly. So, that will just always be in my mind. I’ll just never think that he won’t harm me with a gun.”

—Study Participant

Risk Factors for Firearm Threat in Women’s Daily Lives

During the 90-day period in which women completed daily surveys, experiencing verbal or psychological IPV, severe physical IPV, or sexual IPV was found to be associated with increased risk of experiencing firearm threat the same day. Being threatened by one’s partner, as well as experiencing more verbal or psychological IPV than usual, was associated with increased risk of experiencing firearm threat the next day.

Top three factors that increased risk of experiencing firearm threat in women’s daily lives:

1. Partner’s access to firearm that day
2. Experiencing psychological or verbal IPV that day
3. How much women feared their partner that day

Being broken up with by their partner on a given day was not associated with the likelihood that a woman experienced firearm threat that same day. This finding should not be misinterpreted to mean that separation or a break-up is not a high-risk period.⁶Jacquelyn C. Campbell, “Helping Women Understand Their Risk in Situations of Intimate Partner Violence,” Journal of Interpersonal Violence 19, no. 12 (2004): 1464–77, https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260504269698; Jacquelyn C. Campbell et al., “Intimate Partner Homicide: Review and Implications of Research and Policy,” Trauma, Violence, & Abuse 8, no. 3 (2007): 246–69, https://doi.org/10.1177/1524838007303505. Analyses have not yet examined other factors that may increase women’s risk alongside a break-up. Additionally, these data represent break-ups that occurred recently and those that happened a few months ago, and it is unknown who initiated the break-up. All of these are important factors to consider, and additional research is needed to explore these nuances. 

Overall, 75 percent of women reported using some form of a safety strategy to “stop, prevent, or escape” conflict they were experiencing in their relationship. On days when women experienced a firearm threat, they were more likely to use strategies focused on leaving the situation, such as having a bag of necessities packed to leave quickly, creating distance from the abusive partner by staying with a friend or family member, and removing or hiding weapons. Women who experienced firearm threat at some point during the 90-day survey period were more likely to use domestic violence services, such as attending a support group, and prayer, as safety strategies compared to women who did not experience firearm threat during that time.

“It’s just, he’s unpredictable—so, depending on his mood and depending on how he acts towards a person . . . so, he could wake up that day not wanting to deal with me, and I can be scared for my life, you know. He could threaten to hurt me or do something. And it’s just, you know—I didn’t know what to actually expect. So I would say some days he wanted to threaten me with a gun, and some days he was in love with me.”

—Study Participant

Impact of Firearm Threats on Health and Well-Being

Women who experienced firearm threat in their lifetime had worse depression and PTSD symptoms, more IPV-related injury, and were far less likely to be able to complete daily activities due to poor physical and/or mental health. Similarly, women who experienced firearm threat at any point during the course of this study reported feeling physically unwell on more days compared to women who did not experience a given firearm threat. 

In addition to examining the impacts of firearm threats on women’s health and well-being, we also examined differences in key outcomes using hospital medical records and state criminal justice system data. Our analyses illustrated that women who experienced firearm threat were more likely to have substance use as an active problem at the time of their initial interview. In justice system data, the partners of women who experienced firearm threat in their current relationship were more likely to have a criminal record compared to partners of women who had not experienced firearm threats in their current relationship.

Conclusion

The intersection of IPV and firearm injury and violence is a pressing public health crisis that impacts women well beyond the incident of exposure. By identifying the dynamics of IPV and firearm exposure including explicit and implicit threats, and developing evidence-based interventions that support IPV survivors, we can make significant strides toward reducing harm and saving lives.

You can learn more about the study here. A detailed report of study findings is here.

Acknowledgement: This study was supported by funding from the National Collaborative on Gun Violence Research. The views expressed in this report are the authors’ and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Collaborative on Gun Violence Research, the State of CT Judicial Branch Court Support Services Division, or the State of Connecticut. 

About Dr. Tami P. Sullivan

About the Team