The Link Between Domestic Violence and Mass Shootings.

More than half of mass shootings in the US involve intimate partners and families, according to April Zeoli, an associate professor and policy core director for the Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention at the University of Michigan. Firearms are often used as a tool of control, coercion, and threat in domestic violence situations, and when a male domestic abuser has access to a firearm, his female partner's chances of being killed "increase by fivefold." Red flag laws, which can temporarily prohibit a person from owning or possessing firearms, have been effective in reducing the number of murders of partners in states where they are enforced. However, longer-term solutions are needed to prevent domestic violence and restrict access to guns nationwide.