Shootings related to domestic violence in Illinois were significantly more lethal in 2023 even as their overall number remained mostly stable from previous years, a new report from The Network: Advocating Against Domestic Violence found. The report projected that 130 people in Illinois would die due to domestic gun violence in 2024.
The report, released weeks after U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared gun violence a public health crisis, documented 109 shootings related to domestic violence, which killed 93 people in Illinois throughout 2023.
2022 saw 108 shootings that resulted in 73 deaths, or 27% fewer mortalities than in 2023. Domestic gun violence-related deaths have been on the rise since they hit a recent statewide low of 51 in 2020, according to the report.
The report, the third installment of the organization’s “Measuring Safety” series, noted that the rise in deaths was partially due to an increase in murder-suicides related to domestic violence.
Last year also saw five gun-related family annihilations in Illinois, which led to another 18 deaths and four injuries, according to the report.
Three more family annihilations occurred between January and May 2024, the report noted, putting the state on track to lose seven families to this kind of violence by December.
Maralea Negron, the director of policy, advocacy and research for the Network, said many factors likely contributed to the spike in deaths.
“When someone goes to the lengths of killing an intimate partner or family member, they’re not shooting to injure; for the most part they’re shooting to actually kill,” she said.
Social or financial issues can also play a role in the likelihood of an abusive situation turning deadly, she said.
Because domestic violence situations tend to be anchored in a need for power and control, she said, household stressors can contribute to someone’s need to exert control in other areas of their life.
“In an abusive situation, that person is using any tactic within their control to try and coerce that person to get them to do what they want,” she said. “When someone is engaging in these power and control dynamics, there are usually other social and economic factors at play.”
Negron said that taking a person’s life is “the last tool in the toolbox” for someone looking to control someone else.
The Network and other advocates against domestic violence have spent much of the last year pressuring state legislators to pass HB 4469, known as Karina’s Bill in honor of Little Village’s Karina Gonzalez, whose husband allegedly shot and killed her and their 15-year-old daughter in July 2023. Gonzalez had obtained an order of protection against her husband about two weeks before she was killed.
The measure, currently stalled in the Senate, would require that law enforcement remove firearms from individuals who have orders of protection against them and clarify when and how law enforcement can confiscate such weapons. Currently, firearms aren’t always removed from people involved in those situations even if the owner’s firearm identification card is technically revoked.
Senate President Don Harmon, D-Oak Park, indicated last month that legislators would revisit the proposal in the wake of a recent U.S. Supreme Court move to uphold a law that prevents people under restraining orders from their partners from owning firearms.
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