Jackson County acts to restrict guns from domestic abusers

The Jackson County Legislature enacted an ordinance for domestic assault prevention and petty offense on June 3rd, giving judges the power to take guns out of the hands of abusers, giving teeth to a law that was not present before. 

In domestic abuse cases, this legislation creates a petty offense and bond conditions that restrict firearm in Jackson County. This ordinance will apply to unincorporated Jackson County which are the 40,000 residents who live outside or in between city limits. 

This ordinance was created in response to the relationship between domestic violence and gun violence among women, with the Jackson County Legislature stating it aims to “prioritize the safety and well-being of Jackson County residents.” 

“I am excited to close the gaps between federal and state policies, creating the necessary and needed protections to survivors of domestic violence,” Legislator Manny Abarca said in a statement. “In addition, we are utilizing the courts to help us keep firearms out of the hands of abusers to save lives and prevent any escalation.”

Prior to this ordinance, current federal and state laws, including the Violence Against Women Act, plainly held individuals accountable for domestic violence. But a new federal statute that allows for specific bond conditions to be applied that remove firearms from offenders if paired with a localized ordinance led to the creation of a new one in Jackson County. 

“Our main focus was not necessarily to duplicate the domestic violence charge as much as it was to create a bond condition that would allow the judges to remove firearms from domestic violence perpetrators,” Abarca told the Telegraph. 

According to statistics, “two-thirds of intimate partner homicides in the United States are committed with a gun.” In a release, Abarca cited data from the Rose Brook Center that said “Missouri alone ranks 6th in the rate of men murdering women and in Kansas City, 54% of most at-risk domestic violence victims were threatened with a weapon by their partners.”

Although judges now have the authority to remove firearms from domestic violence offenders within the conditions of a bond, it is context-dependent. Some situations may only call for a firearm to be relinquished during the time of a trial and/or proceedings; other situations necessitate the complete removal and destruction of a firearm.

Under the county’s new ordinance, domestic violence perpetrators are still only subjected to a fine for committed acts. 

While the ordinance outlines physical interpretations of domestic violence, a unique aspect of Jackson County’s ordinance is how it defines isolation as a form of such violence, mirroring some of the municipal ordinances that already exist in the county. 

“When people think of domestic violence, they think of a physical act of assault. They don’t necessarily think about isolating someone, keeping them from their family members or keeping a phone from them in an effort to harm them,” Abarca stated.

Abarca noted that the definition of “isolation” is not as simple as taking a child’s phone away and labeling it as domestic abuse. There has to be an intent to cause physical or mental harm that is more akin to senior abuse or an inaccessible person that has been abused. 

This Jackson County legislation to decrease domestic violence was created in part by the discussions surrounding gun violence by the Health and Environment Committee, Arbaca said. “The reality in Missouri is that we see a heightened level of domestic violence.”