#MeToo's next challenge: domestic gun violence

During the decade she lived with her boyfriend, Sara Elmer was surrounded by guns. Her partner legally owned a rifle, 12 handguns, and a shotgun, which he kept loaded under their bed. But these were not for their protection, she says. He used them to control and terrorize her.

“I was in survival mode every day,” says Ms. Elmer. “If I really thought about how much danger I was in, I don’t know how I could have gone through each day and made it through.”

Indeed, in the United States, close to half the number of women killed in violent homicides each year are fatally shot by their intimate partners, according to federal crime statistics. Add to this women who are shot and killed by other family members – up to 10 percent more, scholars estimate. (By comparison, intimate partners or other family members account for only 2 percent of men killed