McAuliffe's Gun Control Push Endangers Women

Terry McAuliffe officially renewed his call for an “assault weapons” ban in the Commonwealth during a Virginia gubernatorial debate Wednesday night. The Democratic nominee confirmed this when he said he had not changed his mind on the issue and would push to bring back gun-restrictive laws to Virginia, similar to those recently passed in Colorado this year.

“As governor, I’m going to push,” McAuliffe said. “We need universal background checks for everyone to keep our loved ones safe.” However, McAuliffe also told Breitbart News in early August that “gun violence going down” in Virginia while gun sales went up was “not the issue.” 

McAuliffe claims he is a champion of women for his support of the pork-filled legislation slyly named the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). He claims the law can protect women from their abusers and stalkers. The 1994 legislation, which requires regular reauthorization by Congress, encourages women, often to the point of fraudulent accusations, to file restraining or protective orders against their stalkers and abusers as a means of security. McAuliffe’s support of VAWA while pushing gun control legislation, shows he believes an official document telling abusers or stalkers to stay away from actual victims better protects the victims than a firearm would. 

In a statement to Breitbart News, the National Rifle Association wrote in an e-mail that the :

Terry McAuliffe’s gun-control agenda puts additional burdens on law-abiding citizens, while doing nothing to get criminals off the streets and making our communities safer. These laws are particularly harmful to those men and women who are victims of crimes needing to protect themselves and their families from stalkers or abusers.

If McAuliffe gets his way, more women could very well be at the mercy of their armed attackers. It should be noted an AWB would not just deem military style rifles illegal. Semi-automatic handguns are included in the ban as well. The McAuliffe campaign had no response when Breitbart News asked if McAuliffe supported issuing temporary emergency concealed carry permits to victims of rape, whose attackers were still at large.

VAWA was up for re-authorization early last year and passed the Senate but died in the House. Congress later passed the latest re-authorization after GOP leadership caved to the demands of the Democrats in February of 2013. Cuccinelli was among only three Attorneys Generals who did not sign onto a National Association of Attorneys General letter telling Congress to reauthorize the law. The Washington Times reported:

Along with Mr. Cuccinelli, Alaska Attorney General Michael Geraghty and Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange, both Republicans, declined to sign the National Association of Attorneys General letter supporting the act.

Cuccinelli spokeswoman Caroline Gibson said the attorney general’s office often receives requests from the association to sign on to support letters for federal legislation. But she said bills have often been amended after the initial support, sometimes to the point where the attorney general no longer backed them, so Mr. Cuccinelli’s office has adopted a policy of rarely signing onto such letters.

McAuliffe is now criticizing Cuccinelli as being mean-spirited towards abused and raped women for refusing to sign on to the letter, which in the end, would not have amounted to much for Virginians anyway. It should be noted that Cuccinelli was already involved with establishing grant programs for victims subjected to violence, like Verizon Wireless’ HopeLine Program, within the state, to fight domestic violence. According to The Washington Times :

The office administers the Address Confidentiality Program, a confidential mail-forwarding service for crime victims. The program allows participants, usually victims of sexual assault, domestic violence or stalking, to use a substitute mailing address in lieu of their home address in an effort to keep their physical location confidential.

VAWA pushers claim that those who disagree with the legislation should be stamped “woman haters.” However, how effective has VAWA really been since 1994 other than being a liberal political battering ram?

“We have no evidence to date that VAWA has led to a decrease in the overall levels of violence against women,” said the U.S. Justice Department’s Angela Moore Parmley, PhD. E. Everett Bartlett, president of Stop Abusive and Violent Environments (SAVE) wrote an Op-Ed piece at The Hill regarding the matter:

A look at specific VAWA-funded programs reveals the reasons behind Dr. Parmley’s concern:

1. Prosecutions (VAWA Section 101): Research reveals “Increases in the willingness of prosecutors’ offices to take cases of protection order violation were associated with increases in the homicide of white married intimates, black unmarried intimates, and white unmarried females.” Thus for most groups, prosecuting restraining order violations actually increased homicide rates.

2. Pro-arrest policies (Section 103): According to a Harvard University study of mandatory arrest, “Intimate partner homicides increased by about 60 percent in states with mandatory arrest laws.” Mandatory arrest discourages victims from calling for help, placing them at greater risk of a mortal outcome.

3. Restraining Orders (Section 103): VAWA also supports the enforcement of protection orders. As far as their impact, opinion is divided whether such orders are simply ineffective, or whether they actually escalate and worsen the abuse.

Finally, many domestic violence groups have incorrectly attributed the cause of the decline in partner violence. Writing in The Hill’s Congress Blog, Sharon Stapel recently wrote, “VAWA has dramatically reduced intimate partner violence: the Department of Justice estimates the reduction at 64 percent from 1993 to 2010.”

The second part of her claim is correct, the first is not. FBI statistics indicate the number of intimate partner homicides began to fall in the late 1970s, long before passage of VAWA.

In the meantime, McAuliffe’s liberal supporters tell women who are violently stalked by their boyfriends , beaten into comas by their spouses, or are sexually assaulted at gunpoint to call the police; get a rape whistle; get a restraining order; but don’t get a gun.