Implementing Domestic Violence Gun Confiscation Policy in Rural and Urban Communities: Assessing the Perceived Risk,Benefits,and Barriers

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to gain a deeper understanding of why communities differing in culture and resources are willing and able to implement gun confiscation as part of a protective order in the absence of a uniform statewide gun law. Specifically, the perceived risk of intimate partner homicide and gun violence, effectiveness of implementing gun confiscation, and the barriers to implementing gun confiscation were assessed. Interviews were conducted with key community professionals (N = 133) who worked in victim services and the justice system in one urban community and four rural, under-resourced communities. Analyses revealed that professionals in the rural communities viewed the risk of intimate partner homicide and gun violence as lower, and the process of implementing gun confiscation as less effective than professionals in the urban community. In addition, urban justice system professionals, in comparison with all other professionals, reported fewer barriers to enforcing the gun confiscation police and were more likely to downplay law enforcement limitations in the community. The results have implications for developing more effective regional strategies in states that lack domestic violence gun laws as a means to increase a community’s ability to enforce gun policies and initiatives.

Keywords

community violence domestic violence gun violence homicide

Firearms are the most commonly used weapon to murder a partner in the United States (Cooper & Smith, 2011). Protections from intimate partner–related gun violence can include mandated gun removal as a condition of a domestic violence protective order, which is a civil injunction against further abuse and violence. Although federal law prohibits domestic violence protective order respondents from possessing firearms (18 U.S.C. § 922[g][1] [8],[9]), not all states possess state-level legislation that restricts firearm access of convicted nonfelon abusers and protective order respondents. In the absence of state laws, communities may implement initiatives to enforce gun confiscation of protective order respondents. However, little is known regarding the implementation and consistency of the enforcement of mandated gun confiscation procedures (Fleury-Steiner, Miller, & Carcirieri, 2016). Therefore, the present study employed a key informant methodology to gain a deeper understanding of why communities differing in culture and resources are willing and able to implement gun confiscation as part of a protective order.

Domestic Violence Gun Laws and Policies

Intimate partner homicides have been referred to as the most predictable and preventable of all homicides, partly due to the presence of abuse and other associated risk factors (e.g., stalking, separation from a controlling abuser; Campbell et al., 2003; McFarlane et al., 1999) prior to the murder (Center for Research and Education on Violence Against Women and Children, 2014). Given the critical role firearms play in the association between partner abuse and intimate partner homicide, confiscating an abuser’s firearms is the common potential avenue to prevent intimate partner homicide. For example, Campbell et al. (2003) found that intimate partner femicide is 4 times more likely when women have experienced a threat or assault with a firearm or other weapon by their intimate partner. When looking to legal interventions that may reduce intimate partner homicide, research suggests that statewide legislation that prohibits domestic violence protective order respondents from possessing a firearm has been associated with a 9% statewide (Vigdor & Mercy, 2006) and 25% citywide (Zeoli & Webster, 2010) decrease in firearm-related intimate partner homicides. However, not all states have such statewide laws that mirror federal domestic violence–related firearm legislation (18 U.S.C. § 922[g][1] [8],[9]). As of 2016, 14 states, including the state of the current study (Kentucky), do not possess statewide laws that prohibit domestic violence protective order respondents from possessing a firearm (Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, 2016).

The absence of a state law leads to jurisdictional complications concerning the confiscation of abusers’ weapons (i.e., prohibits local law enforcement from confiscating firearms under a state statute) and results in lack of uniformity in gun removal in domestic violence cases. Although protective orders have been shown to be effective in reducing further contact and abuse of intimate partner violence (IPV) victims (Logan & Walker, 2010; Logan, Walker, & Hoyt, 2012; Logan, Walker, Hoyt, & Faragher, 2009), deaths continue to occur and gun removal from an abuser is not a routine part of the protective order process when mandated gun removal is not state law. Although gun confiscation is not a standard condition of a protective order in the absence of a protective order gun law, gun confiscation may be added on as an additional protective order condition by a judge. However, this process relies on the discretion of the courts, and more specifically the judge. In fact, very little is known regarding the implementation and consistency of the enforcement of mandated gun confiscation procedures (Fleury-Steiner, et al., 2016)—particularly at the community level in states that lack uniform statewide gun laws.

Implementing Gun Confiscation: Borrowing From the Health Belief Model

Given the intersection of guns and intimate partner homicide (Campbell et al., 2003; Cooper & Smith, 2011), intimate partner–related gun violence has become an important component of IPV etiology and prevention. In fact, gun violence is more commonly being considered a public health problem in the United States (Dresang, 2001; Orient, 2013). Developing strategies to reduce gun violence from a public health perspective can empower communities to better understand local gun violence, allow for the development of solutions that account for community constraints, motivate communities to take action, and highlight community violence as a modifiable health risk rather than an unchangeable public health problem (Mercy, Rosenberg, Powell, Broome, & Roper, 1993; Ransford, Kane, & Slutkin, 2013). One public health approach to investigate how and why communities implement policies to protect IPV victims from gun violence is to draw upon health behavior models. Researchers use models of health behavior to investigate why individuals engage in health and safety promoting behaviors that protect against potential risks (e.g., Janz & Becker, 1984; Janz, Rimer, & Viswanath, 2008; Lamanna, 2004; Ross, Ross, Rahman, & Cataldo, 2010). The most commonly used model of health behavior is the health belief model (Hochbaum, 1958). According to the health belief model, the likelihood of engaging in a protective behavior is affected by the perceived risk of the health/safety problem, the benefits of engaging in the protective behavior, and the barriers to engaging in the protective behavior. Research has shown that barriers alone can outweigh both the perceived risk and benefits of engaging in a behavior (Champion, 1993; Champion & Menon, 1997; Ellingson & Yarber, 1997; Umeh & Rogan-Gibson, 2001).

The health belief model, for example, has been applied to reduce smoking (Janz & Becker, 1984) and sun tanning (Lamanna, 2004), and increase the use of bike helmets (Ross et al., 2010), which each has local law or policy (e.g., mandatory helmet use) implications in the United States. Therefore, the application of an individual health behavior model to a public health issue that requires a criminal justice response is not unprecedented. However, it is important to note that although the health belief model was originally developed to study health-promoting behaviors of individuals (Janz et al., 2008), the present study adapted the components of this individual-level framework and expanded them to the community level. Nevertheless, expanding individual health behavior models to address a larger community public health issue from the perspective of community professionals is worthwhile given that “third parties,” such as community professionals who are involved in addressing violence, are argued by scholars as central in implementing long-term behavioral change within communities addressing violence (Ransford et al., 2013; Ury, 2002).

Rural Versus Urban Community Context

When investigating the risk-benefit trade-off of implementing firearm confiscation policy, it is vital to consider community culture given that the public health approach to reducing violence emphasizes that efforts should incorporate a community’s specific context and constraints (Mercy et al., 1993; Ransford et al., 2013). For example, researchers have highlighted several key differences regarding IPV and criminal justice remedies to IPV between rural and urban communities (e.g., Logan, Walker, Cole, Ratliff, & Leukefeld, 2003; Logan et al., 2009; Websdale, 1997). This is of particular relevance in the state of the present study, which possesses a large, rural Appalachian area, which in comparison with urban communities, typically has fewer resources of all kinds and the resources that are available must cover a larger geographic region (DeLeon, Hagglund, & Wakefield, 2003; Logan et al., 2009). Research has indicated that crimes related to violence against women are seen by community professionals as a lower priority than other crimes (e.g., drug crimes) in rural, Appalachian communities compared with urban communities (Logan et al., 2009). Furthermore, access to protective orders is more difficult in rural versus urban communities given the plethora of community barriers in rural communities (Logan et al., 2009).

There are several reasons why responses to intimate partner–related gun violence may be different in rural areas. Rural, Appalachian communities are typically more socially and politically conservative, with a stronger adherence to traditional gender role beliefs (e.g., Bush & Lash, 2006; Drake, 2001; Pruitt, 2008a, 2008b). Logan, Stevenson, Evans, and Leukefeld (2004) investigated urban and Appalachian rape survivors’ perceived barriers to help-seeking services and found that rural, Appalachian women, in comparison with urban women, were more accepting of traditional gender roles as part of life (e.g., abuse is something that “men do to women”), which decreased their likelihood to use such services. Political conservatism is also typically associated with progun/anti-gun control beliefs (Celinska, 2007; Pew Research Center 2013). Not surprisingly, gun ownership is higher among residents of rural communities than urban communities (Pew Research Center, 2013), and individuals in rural areas of the United States are typically less supportive of gun control in comparison with those living in urban areas (Wolpert & Gimpel, 1998). Gun culture is deeply rooted in rural culture (Bellesiles, 1996), which creates a deeper cultural meaning for the role guns play in rural resident’s identity (Ching & Creed, 1997). In fact, Lynch and Logan’s (2015) study of IPV victims’ views on gun violence and gun control policies found that confiscation of an abuser’s firearm may actually deter women from seeking a protective order given the potential community shame victims face when asking for their abuser’s guns to be taken. Therefore, policies that require any restriction to gun ownership, especially if they are not state law, may be unpopular in rural communities.

Community Professional Agency Context

Although the purpose of the present study is not to assess how participants (i.e., key community professionals) personally feel about IPV or guns, it cannot be ignored that justice system versus victim service community professionals may view the problem of gun violence differently given their different professional experiences. This may create differences in how participants view their community’s constraints and solutions to gun violence—especially in rural communities where guns are very much a part of everyday life. The differences in victim services and justice system professionals’ experiences with IPV victims can also lead to different impressions of victims and the suggested responses to help these victims. On one hand, victim service professions include occupations such as victim advocacy, counseling, and shelter/crisis staff, where professionals work closely to help victims. On the other hand, victims of IPV can feel blamed by the police or other criminal justice members versus comfort from victim advocates (Lynch & Logan, 2015), which can then contribute to ways that victims seek protective remedies. Furthermore, law enforcement personnel, a large component of a justice system key professional sample, carry firearms and are experienced with guns.

Therefore, we must consider the potential moderating role of participants’ agency type (i.e., justice system vs. victim services) on the effect of community type (i.e., rural vs. urban). For example, criminal justice professionals in Appalachian communities may respond to IPV in a more biased way. This bias has been dubbed the “good ol’ boys network,” meaning that the politics of the criminal justice system in rural communities, which is primarily male-driven, can make it hard for a woman to seek justice and separation from an abuser (Logan et al., 2004). However, it is important to note that urban criminal justice agencies are also typically male-driven and can experience gender bias toward victims (e.g., U.S. Department of Justice, 2016). However, the “good ol’ boys network” has been well-documented in rural areas as a particular barrier to providing victim services to domestic violence and sexual assault victims (e.g., Logan et al., 2004; Logan et al., 2009; Lynch & Logan, 2015; Websdale, 1997). One study found that rural criminal justice professionals were more likely than urban criminal justice professionals to place blame on a victim when listing reasons why an abuser violated a protective order (Logan et al., 2009). Similar sentiments were evidenced in Lynch and Logan’s (2015) investigation of opinions about gun violence and gun policies using urban and rural shelter women. Women, particularly from rural communities, often discussed the impact of local politics on their experiences with the criminal justice system and that law enforcement would not take them seriously. Relatedly, Websdale (1997) investigated Appalachian and urban IPV victims’ experiences with police. Urban victims yielded higher agreement ratings than Appalachian victims that during a domestic violence call, the police removed the abuser from the home, jailed the abuser for more than 12 hr, and informed the victims of her rights. Urban women also reported their experiences with the police in a more positive way.

The Present Study

We employed a key informant methodology to assess how the perceived risk of intimate partner homicide and gun violence, benefits to engaging in gun confiscation, and barriers to gun confiscation may differ (a) in urban and rural communities and (b) as a function of key community agency type (i.e., victim service and justice system key professionals) within rural and urban communities. A “key informant” is an individual who is an expert or has detailed knowledge of a particular issue. Therefore, key informant methodology involves targeted sampling of a specific type of participant; in the case of the present study, a person with an expertise or professional experience with domestic violence and gun violence. Key informant surveys have been used to gain a better understanding of a variety of issues and policies, including differences in attitudes about the access and effectiveness of protective orders in urban and Appalachian communities (Logan et al., 2009) and human trafficking (Cole & Anderson, 2013; Logan, 2007). Primarily, this methodology serves as a useful tool to gain a better understanding of the context surrounding an issue from the perspective of relevant professionals who have appropriate knowledge of a specific study population or topic (e.g., Marshall, 1996; Tremblay, 1957; Warheit, Buhl, & Bell, 1978).

In-depth interviews were conducted with professionals who work both in victim services and the justice system from a targeted urban community and four Appalachian (i.e., rural) communities. It is important to note that the present study was not a statewide investigation of IPV gun confiscation procedures. Rather, it was a detailed comparison of community context in an urban county that makes known efforts to confiscate protective order respondents’ guns and a group of counties in rural Appalachia where little is known about consistent efforts to address intimate partner-related gun violence. A rural Appalachian sample was chosen to provide a specific contrast to an urban location given the differences in community culture and access to resources. The aim of this study is to provide information that can be used to assist other communities that face unique challenges and barriers to disarming abusers.

Method

Participants

Recruitment and sampling

County selection and recruitment procedures were similar to those in Logan et al.’s (2009) key informant study of protective order effectiveness in urban and rural communities. Each county processed about the same proportion of protective orders in relation to its population and has some form of local victim services, such as shelters and crisis centers. The present study used a purposeful sampling technique, followed by an adaptation of snowball sampling (Goodman, 1961). Initially, specific agencies were targeted to ensure that a breadth of key professionals are accessed and the recommendations for other professionals is diverse. This established an initial group of key professionals who have expertise with domestic violence programs/advocacy, law enforcement procedures/personnel, gun confiscation/laws, and courtroom proceedings/personnel related to domestic violence or protective orders. After contacting the recommended key professionals, these new key professionals then recommended other key professionals in their community. Therefore, the recruitment of key informants began to “snowball.” This recruitment methodology has been used in previous key informant research (e.g., Cole & Anderson, 2013; Elmendorf & Luloff, 2001, 2006; Leukefeld, Walker, Havens, Leedham, & Tolbert, 2007; Logan, 2007; Logan et al., 2009; Luloff, 1999). As with all forms of sampling, there are disadvantages to snowball sampling (e.g., not probability sampling; see Sadler, Lee, Seung-Hwan Lim, & Fullerton, 2010); however, this method of recruitment is an excellent way to maximize the response rate (Sadler et al., 2010).

Key professionals in the present study were categorized as victim services (i.e., victim advocates, violence organization staff/workers, women’s shelter staff/workers) or justice system (i.e., law enforcement, judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, jail workers) professionals (see Logan et al., 2009). We recruited key professionals until each community reached saturation. To ensure that a rich understanding of each community was accessed in the present study, sampling stopped when no new information and/or sources (i.e., participants) emerged (see Strauss & Corbin, 1998).

Final sample

A total of 178 key professionals (86 urban, 92 rural) were identified through initial contact with key community agencies and recommendations from other key professionals. However, only 161 of these key professionals met the inclusion criteria of the study. Of the 17 participants who did not meet the inclusion criteria, seven participants (41.2%) did not specifically serve adult IPV victims (i.e., they worked only with children or other vulnerable populations), six participants (35.3%) did not fit the category of victim service or justice system professionals (e.g., government-appointed domestic violence committee member), and four (23.5%) participants neither previously nor currently specifically served any of the targeted five counties.

Finally, 28 of the 161 eligible key professionals did not complete an interview. Sixteen participants refused to participate in the study (i.e., 9.9% refusal rate) and 12 participants could not be reached during the study recruitment window (i.e., 7.5% unable to contact rate). Thus, the final sample size of the present study consisted of 133 key professionals. Of the final sample, 48.1% (n = 64) were recruited from the urban community and 51.9% (n = 69) were recruited from the Appalachian communities; 40.6% (n = 54) were classified as justice system professionals and 59.4% (n = 79) were classified as victim service professionals. The majority were female (72.2%), White (94.7%), and originally from the state where the data were collected (77.4%). Participants’ average age was 43 years (SD = 10.6), with a range from 22 to 70 years.

Materials

Key professional interview

The key informant interview underwent two extensive rounds of pilot testing and its content was guided by components of the health belief model. All measures were created based on standards of how components of the health belief model should be evaluated (Janz et al., 2008).

Perceived risk of intimate partner gun violence/homicide

The perceived risk of an issue is comprised of two primary factors: the perceived seriousness of intimate partner-related gun violence, which assesses perceptions of the dangerousness of gun violence in IPV situations, and the perceived vulnerability or risk of IPV victims to experience gun violence, which assesses participants’ perceptions of how vulnerable or at risk women in IPV situations are to experience gun violence and injury/death (Janz et al., 2008). With regard to assessing the seriousness of intimate partner gun violence, participants indicated how big of a problem (1 = not at all a problem, 2 = somewhat a problem, 3 = quite a big problem, 4 = extremely big problem) in their community are both intimate partner gun violence and intimate partner homicide. With regard to perceived vulnerability, participants rated how at risk (1 = not at all at risk, 2 = somewhat at risk, 3 = quite at risk, 4 = extremely at risk) IPV victims are in the community to be killed or injured by a gun.

Effectiveness of gun confiscation

One of the primary ways to measure the benefits of engaging in a protective response is to evaluate the perceived effectiveness of a response (Janz et al., 2008). Measuring key community professionals’ beliefs about the effectiveness of gun confiscation procedures was particularly integral in the present study given that the effectiveness of a protective response has been shown to be most strongly related to the likelihood of engaging in the behavior if the participant has high knowledge about the problem (i.e., expertise; Martin, Bender, & Raish, 2007). Thus, participants indicated how effective (1 = very ineffective, 2 = ineffective, 3 = effective, 4 = very effective) at reducing intimate partner homicide they believed the gun confiscation policy to be. Participants were also asked in an open-ended format why they believed the gun confiscation policy to be ineffective or effective in their community.

Barriers to gun confiscation

Participants indicated how much of a barrier (1 = not at all a barrier, 2 = somewhat a barrier, 3 = very much a barrier) 10 listed challenges are in the community to enforcing gun confiscation. These challenges (see Table 2 for a list) were preestablished during pilot testing and ranged from limited community resources to perceived community approval of the policy and gun culture in the community.

Procedure

The procedure was similar to previous research that used key informant methodology (e.g., Cole & Anderson, 2013; Leukefeld et al., 2007; Logan, 2007; Logan et al., 2009). The first author conducted 133 key professional interviews between June 2015 and January 2016. The interviews, which took about 30 min to complete, were conducted with urban and rural professionals who possessed knowledge about IPV and/or legal procedures related to IPV. Prior to the interview, participants were given a verbal description of the study and necessary elements of consent, such as confidentiality. At the end of each interview, participants were asked to name other individuals who they believed are key personnel in the community related to the issue of protections for IPV. Participants were thanked and given the author’s contact information before concluding the conversation.

Analysis Plan

ANOVAs were conducted to detect differences as a function of community type, agency type, and Community × Agency interactions for continuous, rating outcome measures. Chi-square analyses were conducted to detect significant differences in proportions of categorical responses, whereas logistic regressions and z tests were used to analyze the Community Type × Agency Type interactions for these categorical outcome measures. Only statistically significant interactions are noted in the results. The open-ended responses to why the gun confiscation policy is effective or ineffective were coded using NVivo11. NVivo has several advantages for coding qualitative data, including options to organize all responses coded under a single theme to double check for coding mistakes and reliability. The responses were content coded for themes specific to each open-ended question (e.g., different themes for policy effectiveness rationale vs. policy benefits) and were recorded as either containing the theme (i.e., “1”) or not (i.e., “0”). Participants’ responses could contain more than one theme; however, all themes within a single open-ended question were mutually exclusive.

Results

Current Gun Confiscation Procedures in Communities

To obtain an accurate assessment of current protective order gun confiscation procedures in the sampled communities, only participants who sat or participated in domestic violence protective order hearings at least once a week reported which procedures consistently occurred. This subsample consisted of 32 professionals (urban = 19, rural = 13). As expected, it was more common for urban versus rural professionals to report that the protective order hearing judge asks the respondent if he or she owns a firearm (urban = 84.62%, rural = 36.84%), χ²(1) = 7.16, p = .001; order the respondent to turn in his or her firearms (urban = 100%, rural = 36.84%) χ²(1) = 13.14, p < .001; and make arrangements or follow-up to ensure the firearms have been surrendered or confiscated (urban = 76.92%, rural = 15.79%); χ²(1) = 11.96, p = .001. However, similarly high proportions of urban (92.31%) and rural professionals (89.47%) reported that the judge consistently tells the respondent that he or she is not allowed to have a gun during the protective order, χ²(1) = .07, p = .787.

Perceived Risk of Intimate Partner Gun Violence and Homicide

Community type

Participants in the urban community rated both intimate partner gun violence (urban: M = 2.54, SD = .84; rural: M = 2.13, SD = .68), F(3, 128) = 13.67, p < .001, η² = .096, and intimate partner homicide (urban: M = 2.23, SD = .80; rural: M = 1.96, SD = .75), F(3, 127) = 4.71, p = .032, η² = .036, as significantly bigger problems in their community compared to participants from the rural communities. There were no significant differences in the urban (M = 2.71, SD = .87) and rural (M = 2.71, SD = .83) participants’ ratings of how at risk IPV victims are to be killed by an abuser with a gun in their communities, F(3, 127) = 0.35, p = .557, η² = .003.

Agency type

Victim service professionals rated both intimate partner gun violence (victim services: M = 2.47, SD = .77; justice system: M = 2.11, SD = .77), F(3, 128) = 9.11, p = .003, η² = .066, and intimate partner homicide (victim services: M = 2.19, SD = .83; justice system: M = 1.92, SD = .68), F(3, 127) = 4.61, p = .034, η² = .035, as significantly bigger problems in their community compared with justice system professionals. Victim service professionals (M = 2.91, SD = .83) also rated IPV victims’ risk to be killed or injured by a gun as significantly higher than justice system professionals (M = 2.43, SD = .80), F(3, 127) = 11.25, p = .001, η² = .081.

Perceived Effectiveness (Benefit) of Gun Confiscation

Effectiveness ratings

Community type

Participants in the urban community (M = 2.62, SD = .93) rated the policy as significantly more effective than participants in rural communities (M = 2.19, SD = 1.02), F(3, 127) = 5.25, p = .024, η² = .039.

Agency type

There were no significant differences in the average effectiveness ratings of gun confiscation between victim service (M = 2.47, SD = 1.06) and justice system (M = 2.28, SD = .93) participants, F(3, 128) = 1.67, p = .199, η² = .013.

Open-ended reasons for policy effectiveness or ineffectiveness

Open-ended reasons for policy effectiveness

Common themes coded from participants’ open-ended responses as to why they believed the gun confiscation policy is effective or ineffective are shown in Table 1. With regard to reasons why participants’ viewed the policy is effective, the most common rationales were that the policy removes immediate access to a weapon in the heat of the moment and that the policy keeps weapons out of abusers’ hands. For example, participants made comments such as, “if a weapon is in the presence of the perpetrator then the perpetrator can fly off the handle and hurt someone, [therefore the] policy takes away immediate access to a dangerous situation” (i.e., immediate access to weapon) and “[the policy] decreases the number of weapons available to abusers” (i.e., keeps weapons out of abusers’ hands). Other reasons for why the policy is effective included that the policy sends a message to abusers that IPV and gun violence are taken seriously and that agencies in the community are able to effectively respond to the judge’s order of gun confiscation. There were no significant differences in reasons for policy effectiveness as a function of community type or agency type.

Table 1.

Proportion of Participants Who Mentioned Reason for Effectiveness Themes (Open-Ended Response).

Theme	Urban (n = 64)	Rural (n = 69)	χ²	p	Justice System (n = 54)	Victim Services (n = 79)	χ²	p
Reasons for effectiveness
Removes immediate access to weapon in the moment	21.88%	11.59%	2.54	.111	22.22%	12.66%	2.13	.145
Keeps weapons out of abusers’ hands	15.63%	11.60%	0.46	.497	12.96%	13.92%	0.03	.874
Sends message about the seriousness of IPV/gun violence	6.25%	2.90%	0.87	.352	5.56%	3.80%	0.23	.631
Agencies in community are able to effectively respond	3.13%	2.90%	0.01	.939	3.70%	2.53%	0.15	.698
Reasons for infectiveness
Too easy to access new guns	42.19%	34.78%	0.77	.380	40.74%	36.71%	0.22	.639
Abusers will still find way to harm the victim	35.94%	13.04%	9.53	.002	29.63%	20.25%	1.54	.214
Abusers are not compliant with the order	21.88%	11.59%	2.54	.11	16.67%	29.11%	2.72	.099
Limitations with state laws and issues of jurisdiction	10.94%	10.14%	0.02	.882	11.11%	10.13%	0.03	.856
No follow-through or monitoring after order	4.67%	14.49%	3.62	.057	5.56%	12.66%	1.84	.176
Hunting, guns, and land	0.00%	15.94%	11.12	.001	7.41%	8.86%	0.09	.765
Policy is impossible to enforce	7.81%	0.00%	5.60	.018	0.00%	6.33%	3.55	.060

Note. IPV = intimate partner violence. Percentages reflect the proportion of each participant type whose response contained the listed theme; participants’ responses could reflect multiple themes but each theme is mutually exclusive.

Open-ended reasons for ineffectiveness

The two most common reasons for why the gun confiscation policy is ineffective was that it is too easy for abusers to access new guns, which did not differ in response frequency by community type, and that abusers will still find a way to harm the victim, which was mentioned by a significantly higher proportion of urban versus rural participants. With regard to the latter theme, participants made comments such as, “violence isn’t access based so if a perpetrator wants to kill someone he’ll find a gun or another way to do it . . . taking away access to guns doesn’t necessarily decrease the risk” and “it doesn’t take a gun to kill victims. Perpetrators will use other weapons to kill.” Other common ineffectiveness rationales that were mentioned at similar percentages among community type included: abusers are not compliant with the gun confiscation order (“order doesn’t necessarily make abusers turn their guns in”), limitations of state laws and jurisdiction (“need a gun registration policy for this gun confiscation policy to be effective”), and that there is no follow-through or monitoring after abusers are told to give up their guns (“there’s no monitoring to make sure the guns are turned in and homes are not checked”).

There were significant differences in commonly mentioned reasons for policy ineffectiveness between the urban and rural professionals. Nearly 16% of rural professionals compared with 0 urban professionals mentioned community contextual factors related to hunting, guns, or land in their rationale for why the gun confiscation policy is ineffective. Examples of participant responses include, “the county is very large and everything is spread out. There’s a lot of land for law enforcement to cover” and “it’s a small community in [name of rural area] where guns are valued and collected.” Also yielding significant differences in frequency of responses, 7.81% of urban professionals compared with zero rural professionals made general comments that there are no specific reasons why the policy is ineffective but rather that the policy is simply impossible or too hard to enforce given all of the “loopholes” in the system. There were no significant differences in the open-ended responses for policy ineffectiveness as a function of agency type.

Community Type × Agency Type interactions

A logistic regression analysis revealed a significant Community Type × Agency Type interaction for the proportion of participants who reported that the easy access to guns as a theme for the gun confiscation policy ineffectiveness (odds ratio [OR] = 10.77, p = .003). Specifically, in the urban community, a significantly higher proportion of urban justice system professionals (58.62%) than urban victim service professionals (28.67%) mentioned easy access to guns as an ineffectiveness theme (z = −2.42, p = .016), whereas there were no significant differences between victim service (43.18%) and justice system (20%) professionals in the rural area (z = −1.94, p = .052).

Community Barriers to Gun Confiscation

Community type

The proportion of participants who indicated that each challenge was a barrier to enforcing mandated gun confiscation as part of a protective order are shown in Table 2. On average, participants from rural communities (M = 7.69, SD = 1.79) reported significantly more barriers of the 10 listed challenges than participants from the urban community (M = 6.45, SD = 1.98), F(3, 124) = 15.31, p < .001, η² = .110. With regard to specific barriers, significantly more rural participants than urban participants indicated that all but three barriers were significant barriers to enforcing gun confiscation in their communities. Specifically, key professionals from urban and rural communities did not differ in their assertion that victims do not want their abusers’ guns taken away as a community barrier. In addition, nearly 100% of both urban and rural participants reported that it is easy for abusers to get new guns illegally and that it’s hard to tell if abusers lie about gun ownership in court as community barriers to enforcing the gun confiscation policy.

Table 2.

Proportion of Who Agreed That Each Challenge Is a Barrier in Community to Enforcing Gun Confiscation Policy.

Barrier	Urban (n = 64)	Rural (n = 69)	χ²	p	Justice System (n = 54)	Victim Services (n = 79)	χ²	p
Limited law enforcement resources to enforce the policy	62.50%	86.76%	10.35	.001	66.04%	81.01%	3.79	.051
Limited victim advocacy resources to push for abusers’ guns to be removed	57.81%	75.00%	4.38	.036	64.15%	68.35%	0.25	.616
Limited space to store the guns that are removed	32.87%	51.47%	4.59	.032	28.30%	52.63%	7.56	.006
Victims do not want their abusers’ guns taken away	53.23%	54.41%	0.02	.892	51.92%	55.13%	0.13	.720
Additional work for justice system professionals	59.38%	79.41%	6.27	.012	52.83%	81.01%	11.93	.001
Intimate partner–related gun violence isn’t a big enough problem in the community	44.44%	61.76%	3.94	.047	49.06%	56.41%	0.69	.408
People in the community won’t agree with that policy	65.08%	82.35%	5.08	.024	57.69%	84.81%	12.00	.001
General community belief that the policy is a violation of right to bear arms	68.75%	85.29%	5.14	.023	62.26%	87.34%	11.36	.001
Easy to get guns illegally (e.g., street/family)	98.44%	97.06%	0.28	.595	98.11%	97.47%	0.06	.807
Hard to know if abusers lie about gun ownership in court	96.88%	95.58%	0.15	.699	96.23%	96.20%	0.00	.994

Note. Percentages reflect the proportion of participants who reported that the challenge was a barrier in the community (either by indicating somewhat or very much a barrier) in a close-ended response.

Agency type

On average, victim service professionals (M = 7.62, SD = 1.66) reported significantly more of the 10 listed challenges as barriers than justice system professionals (M = 6.37, SD = 2.17), F(3, 124) = 12.64, p = .001, η² = .092. As seen in Table 2, significantly more victim service than justice professionals reported the following challenges as barriers in their communities: limited space to store the guns that are removed, additional work for justice system professionals, the community won’t agree with the policy, and a general community belief that the policy is a violation of the right to bear arms. However, victim service and justice system professionals did not significantly differ in their reports that the following were barriers in their communities: limited victim advocacy resources, victims don’t want their abusers’ guns taken away, and intimate partner gun violence isn’t a big enough problem.

Community × Agency Type interactions

The interaction between community and agency type was significant for the average number of reported community barriers to implementing gun confiscation, F(3, 124) = 5.91, p = .017, η² = .045. Justice system professionals (M = 5.43, SD = 1.97) reported significantly fewer barriers than victim service professionals (M = 7.34, SD = 1.49) in the urban community, t(58) = 4.27, p < .001. However, there were no significant differences in the number of barriers reported by victim service (M = 7.82, SD = 1.76) and justice system professionals (M = 7.46, SD = 1.86) in the rural community, t(66) = 0.79, p = .432.

With regard to the frequency of reporting specific barriers in the community, logistic regression analyses revealed two significant Community Type × Agency Type interactions. With regard to the first interaction (OR = .12, p = .032), a significantly lower percentage of justice system professionals in the urban community (44.83%) reported limited law enforcement as a community barrier to implementing gun confiscation in comparison with victim service professionals in the urban area (77.14%; z = −2.66, p = .008) and both rural justice system professionals (91.67%; z = −3.58, p < .001) and rural victim service professionals (84.09%; z = −3.53, p < .001). Proportions of rural participants who reported this barrier did not differ by agency type in the rural area (z = .88, p = .379).

As for the second interaction (OR = .19, p = .032), a significantly lower proportion of urban justice system professionals (31.03%) reported that intimate partner gun violence is not a big enough issue in their community as a community barrier to implementing gun confiscation in comparison with urban victim service professionals (55.88%; z = −3.70, p < .001), and both rural justice system professionals (70.83%; z = −2.89, p < .004) and rural victim service professionals (56.68%; z = −2.16, p = .031). Proportions of rural victim service and justice system professionals who reported this barrier did not significantly differ (z = 1.13, p = .254).

Discussion

The results revealed two primary findings that have implications for developing community strategies to implementing gun confiscation policies in the absence of state domestic violence gun laws. First, there were key differences in the perceived risk of gun violence and homicide, and effectiveness and barriers to gun confiscation between the urban and rural communities, suggesting that strategies to address gun violence and intimate partner homicide should not adopt a “one size fits all” approach, but rather incorporate a community’s specific barriers, concerns, and culture. Second, although victim service professionals viewed the perceived risk of intimate partner homicide and gun violence as higher than criminal justice agencies, the remaining differences among professionals’ agency type was moderated by community type. This highlights the need to consider community stakeholder’s experiences and culture in addition to the general community culture when implementing gun policies at the community level.

Differences at the Community Type Level

Professionals working in rural communities viewed intimate partner-related gun violence and homicide as less serious issues in the community. It is possible that because there are fewer individuals in each of the rural communities than in the urban community, there are fewer homicides in the rural communities. Relatedly, gun-related crime is less common in rural areas compared with urban areas (Blocher, 2013). Thus, homicide or gun violence may not be perceived as a serious issue in smaller, rural communities in comparison with urban communities where these crimes are more prevalent. Participants working in the rural communities also rated the gun confiscation policy as less effective than urban professionals and reported more barriers to enforcing the gun confiscation policy than participants in the urban area. Rural communities face challenges related to limited resources, such as funding and personnel, in addition to pro-gun cultural barriers to implementing gun confiscation.

There are also unique geographical challenges in rural areas to consider. For example, rural professionals explained that the large geographic layout of their rural area was a reason why it is difficult to both serve protective orders and easy to hide guns, making the gun confiscation policy ineffective in their communities. This was also evidenced in Logan et al.’s (2009) investigation of protective order effectiveness, as these authors pointed out that the vast layout and mountainous topography of Appalachia can pose barriers to law enforcement and victims’ access to resources. Therefore, a combination of: (1) perceptions that intimate partner gun violence and homicide are not serious enough issues in the community, (2) beliefs that the “remedy” (i.e., gun confiscation) is not an effective solution,and (3) significant community barriers to implementing protective policies, create a low risk-benefit evaluation of gun confiscation in rural communities.

Implications

Given the cultural and contextual differences in rural and urban communities, rural communities may need additional or different supports to implement community initiatives. These supports may be additional education, funding for personnel and programs, and different framing of the issue surrounding IPV and gun violence. Of the participants in the present study who attended protective order hearings every week, 100% of participants in the urban community reported that the judge consistently ordered the respondent to surrender his or her weapons compared with only about 37% of participants in the rural community. Researchers suggest that specialized domestic violence or family courts, where the judges are more educated about the dangers of IPV, can help increase the likelihood that gun confiscation (or the surrendering of guns) will occur at the court-level (Frattaroli & Teret, 2006). Therefore, increased education and awareness about the dangers of weapons in the context of IPV should be emphasized for nonspecialized judges who hear protective orders.

Adopting a public health approach, such as the health belief model, when studying gun violence prevention has a number of potential community advantages, as it can (a) empower communities to better understand gun violence, (b) motivate communities to take action against such violence, (c) develop solutions in collaborative way that account for community constraints, and (d) highlight gun violence as a modifiable health risk rather than an unchangeable public health problem (Mercy et al., 1993; Ransford et al., 2013). Therefore, it is worthwhile for researchers to consider adopting health behavior models when studying violence-related issues—particularly at the community or regional level. Finally, policy makers may want to frame firearm policy in pro-gun, rural areas differently than urban communities given that a “one size fits” all approach to community efforts addressing violence is likely to be ineffective. For example, addressing the issue of intimate partner homicide as an “anti-abuse” versus “anti-gun” may be one way to help present the notion of additional domestic violence–related policies to a resistant community (Haas & Turley, 2007).

Importance of Community Professionals’ Agency Context

The present study also revealed that victim service professionals viewed the perceived risk of intimate partner gun violence and homicide as higher than criminal justice professionals, which was expected given the work of Logan and colleagues (Logan et al., 2004; Logan et al., 2009). However, the remaining differences in professional agency type were moderated by the community where participants lived. Specifically, urban justice system professionals in the present study viewed aspects of the implementation of gun confiscation differently than rural and victim service professionals. Urban victim service professionals actually reported nearly the same number of community barriers (about seven out of 10) as both types of rural professionals. Given the limited resources and strong gun culture in the rural area, it is understandable why rural professionals would have similar, high estimations of community barriers. However, differences in the perceived barriers within the urban, resourced community warrants further discussion.

Urban justice system professionals, on average, reported two fewer barriers in the community than urban victim service professionals. Their lower average number of barriers may have been driven by two specific perceived barriers: (a) Urban justice system professionals were significantly less likely than urban victim service professionals to report limited law enforcement resources and (b) intimate partner gun violence is not a big enough problem in the community. It is possible that the agency differences in the urban community were due to a heightened awareness and education of IPV-related issues in urban victim service professionals. As previously mentioned, there are many IPV-related initiatives and victim resources in the urban community, making the urban victim service professionals well-versed in the complexities and dangerousness of fatal IPV. Justice system professionals in the urban community may think that the community seems to take the issue of intimate partner gun violence seriously at face value, but they may not be privy to the challenges that victim services face in advocating for more community awareness of this issue.

Justice system professionals were also less likely than victim service professionals to report that law enforcement resources were a barrier to the policy, suggesting an in-group agency bias in how different professional types perceive the challenges of enforcing the policy. Furthermore, in their open-ended responses, urban justice system professionals were also significantly more likely than urban victim service professionals to attribute the gun confiscation policy’s ineffectiveness to the easy access to guns in society. This is rather a larger issue related to implementing effective background checks and monitoring individuals who are prohibited from possessing a firearm. Although these are major issues in enforcing gun control policies in general (Vigdor & Mercy, 2006; Webster & Vernick, 2013; Zeoli, Malinski, & Turchan, 2016), it is possible that justice system professionals in the urban community, who have the largest role in implementing gun confiscation, view the barriers of enforcement as outside their control.

Implications

The fact that these professional agency type differences were found specifically in the urban community, which is more resourced and has more readiness to implement community-level gun confiscation initiatives, is an important finding to consider in the context of the present study. Perhaps at a basic level, a community needs the appropriate motivators and infrastructure (e.g., resources, consideration of community values) to implement community-based initiatives to disarm abusers. When a community is able to attempt such initiatives, then issues related to professional agency culture within the community may arise. That is, the role of agency differences is secondary to if a community is completely unwilling, unable, and under-resourced to implement gun confiscation. The issue of perceived community differences among service agencies is an important aspect to consider when implementing efforts to reduce intimate partner gun violence and homicide in urban communities. For example, do victim service professionals feel more pessimistic about community barriers because they are the ones to work with victims when an abuser is not complying with the justice system or the justice system fails? Do justice system professionals understand the weaknesses in the system that leave victims unprotected? Further investigation of where professionals from different agencies assign blame of shortcomings in the system and how they believe the system can improve may help promote more interagency collaboration to implement protective policy in urban communities that already have an existing infrastructure.

It is also important to add that although only rural community professionals brought up cultural barriers related to the “good ol’ boys network” in their communities, issues associated with male-driven networks also exist in urban criminal justice areas in the United States. As an example, a recent investigation of the Baltimore City Police Department found evidence that some officers questioned female sexual assault victims in a manner that blamed the victim by posing questions such as, “why are you messing that guy’s life up?” (U.S. Department of Justice, 2016, p. 122). Thus, patriarchal subculture is not specific to rural criminal justice systems and should not be treated as such. Strategies that aim to improve the criminal justice response to domestic violence–related issues, including firearm policy, should consider gender-related issues of agency culture in all types of communities.

Limitations

The limitations of the present study are important to consider and provide ample opportunity for future work. First, the present study was not a statewide or national investigation of the implementation of a domestic violence gun policy. Therefore, there are generalizability issues and the data reflect only certain communities in a single state. Second, although efforts were made to contact all referred key professionals at the targeted or referred community agencies, not all participants could be reached within the data collection window. Third and related to the previous point, justice system professionals, especially in the rural area, were underrepresented in comparison with victim service professionals. Although more referrals were victim service professionals, more of the eligible participants who did not complete an interview were justice system professionals. Justice system professionals were generally difficult to contact, and in the case of law enforcement, were often in the field during their work hours. The issue of better recruiting justice system professionals, particularly in the rural area, may be remedied in future work by engaging in more face-to-face visits with an agency. Fourth, the present study collected data only from the perspective of justice system and victim service professionals. Although this methodology provided insight into how community professionals viewed the issues of implementing mandated gun confiscation in urban and rural areas, there are other perspectives that should be considered. Fifth, it is also important to acknowledge that there may be concerns of the potential biases affecting key professional responses—particularly given the strong gun culture of the rural area and that many justice system participants may be more exposed to guns than victim service professionals. However, in the present study, key professionals were not asked their own personal opinions and were told that they would be giving their professional opinions about intimate partner–related gun violence.

Future Considerations and Conclusion

The present study provides an excellent opportunity for future work in this area. First, it would be ideal and an obvious next step to implement statewide and national investigations of protective order gun confiscation procedures. At a basic level, there is little to no official knowledge of how often and consistently gun confiscation is ordered as part of a protective order, and what follow-through efforts are made to implement the gun confiscation in states that lack statewide domestic violence gun laws. Having such information could help researchers and policy makers strategize about the best ways to develop mandatory procedures statewide. In addition, future research is needed that investigates the issue of intimate partner homicide beyond the implementation of the domestic violence protective order gun law. There is also a federal domestic violence gun law that prohibits domestic violence misdemeanants from owning a firearm for the rest of their lives. However, there is no evidence thus far to suggest that this law implemented at state level reduces intimate partner homicides (Vigdor & Mercy, 2006; Zeoli et al., 2016). Although it is speculated that this is because it is very difficult to classify crimes as a “domestic violence misdemeanor” consistently across each state; it would be valuable to create a standard format for domestic violence misdemeanors to be classified as such so that they can be easily entered into the universal background check system. If these misdemeanors are classified more consistently across states, not only will it improve the ability to flag individuals who should not be allowed to buy a firearm but also it can help researchers accurately assess the efficacy of this law.

Next, more work is needed to better understand why victims in potentially fatal situations do not seek justice system intervention (e.g., seek a protective order). For example, statewide reports revealed that only 9% of female victims of intimate partner homicide in North Carolina (Morraco, Runyan, & Butts, 1998), 11.3% of female victims in California (Vittes & Sorenson, 2008), and 20% of female victims of intimate partner homicide in Kentucky (Logan & Lynch, 2014) ever filed for or obtained a protective order against their offenders prior to the homicide. Much of the current literature, often due to methodological reasons, focuses on women who have contacted the justice system before a murder or attempted murder. However, more information is needed about why victims do not seek help in an effort to increase the successful intervention of community efforts to save IPV victims from potentially fatal violence.

Finally, it is worthwhile for researchers to consider applying conceptual frameworks across disciplines, such as public health and psychology, when considering how to address community responses to gun violence. Despite the growing body of work on gun violence, there is a dearth of empirical work that utilizes theoretical frameworks as means to guide how gun policy may be better implemented. Building on the present study’s guiding measures, a contributing factor of assessing one’s risk and making a decision to act in protection are feelings of fear (Lazarus, 1966; Leventhal, 1970; Rogers, 1975). Protection motivation theory, for example, incorporates feelings of fear in the threat assessment (Rogers, 1975). Protection motivation theory may be of particular value if collecting data from the perspective of IPV victims in how they are motivated to take protective measures against potentially fatal IPV.

In conclusion, although there are many barriers to effectively enforcing domestic violence gun laws, especially in rural areas, this should not discourage researchers, policy makers, and other professionals from working toward protecting victims from gun violence and fatal IPV. Understanding differences in urban and rural culture allows for more effective strategizing in how to increase a community’s ability and motivation to enforce gun policy and how to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous abusers. More effective domestic violence-related gun initiatives at the community level may raise awareness of the risk of guns in the context of IPV and help increase the likelihood that a statewide domestic violence laws may be adopted.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biographies

Kellie R. Lynch, PhD, is an assistant professor of criminal justice at the University of Texas at San Antonio. She earned her doctoral degree in experimental social psychology from the Department of Psychology at the University of Kentucky. Her research interests include intimate partner violence, intimate partner gun violence/homicide, the implementation of domestic violence gun laws and policy, campus safety and sexual assault, stalking, and psychosocial theories related to victim blaming.

TK Logan, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Behavioral Science, College of Medicine, and the Center on Drug and Alcohol Research at the University of Kentucky. Her research and writings focus on stalking, protective order effectiveness, sexual assault, intimate partner homicide, and health disparities of rural women with partner violence experiences. She is an author on more than 125 research articles and serves on the editorial board of two international journals. She is currently the principal investigator on five substance abuse treatment outcome studies. Her books include Women and Victimization: Contributing Factors, Interventions, and Implications (American Psychological Association Press) and Partner Stalking: How Women Respond, Cope, and Survive (Springer Publisher). She is also involved with several community boards and national organizations working to prevent violence against women.

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