 Welcome to Family Affairs, coming to you live from the ThinkTuck Hawaii studios. I'm your host, Lisa Kimura, here to discuss the issues, policies, and initiatives that affect families in Hawaii and what we can do to develop healthier, safer communities. With me today, Erica Yamaguchi from Moms Demand Action and Michelle Raqqa, community advocate, here to talk about the impact of gun laws, how to keep safe during the epidemic of gun violence in our country, and how various coalitions like Moms Demand Action are working to address the issues and impact. Welcome, thanks for joining me today. Thanks for having us. Yeah. So, as a mom myself, I know you both are moms too. This is the kind of issue that keeps me up at night. These are the kinds of stories that are happening throughout the country on an almost daily basis. Now, talk to me a little bit about what the situation is with Americans in general and gun violence. Sure. With Americans in general and gun violence, I mean, you're no stranger to the news, and it seems like every day we hear something horrific has happened in a public place. It seems like nowhere is safe. Just talking to my friends, you know, who are constantly commenting that they're afraid to go to concerts and large gatherings anymore. I noticed for myself, I just had a baby in September, and immediately afterwards just being really heightened awareness of what's going on around me and always thinking about that. I think it's just a new epidemic that we will think about every day, especially as moms hearing about the violence that our kids face in schools is really something that we cannot just sit back and allow to happen. And so really thankful for community advocates like Erica, who are really advocating for smart policies and to address gun laws and make sensible agreements, community agreements enforced through policy to help us all get a little more rest at night. We've got some stats we'll put up on the screen, too, showing your increased likelihood of died from gun violence in this country, but specifically for Hawaii. We tend to, I think, be a little more insulated. We feel like we have stronger laws. Is that true? Where do we have room to grow? What's the situation like for us here? I can just speak on mom's demand and what we've been working on over the past couple years, because I think, again, with mass shootings on the rise already this year, we've had more than 100 mass shootings. And just last week we had one in Virginia Beach. And so it seems like, yeah, just we can't keep up with the news about mass shootings in our country. In Hawaii, we aren't actually stranger to mass shootings. We haven't had one in some time, but I think people remember in the late 90s there was kind of similar to Virginia Beach, the Xerox Corporation mass shooting, where kind of similar disgruntled employee situation happened. And I think around 10 people were killed. So it has happened in Hawaii. Unfortunately, it can happen anywhere. So our laws are, I would say, tougher than other states. However, we still have a lot of work to do. And I think the common misperception is that we have strong gun laws we don't need to do more. And actually, I think some people just assume some common sense gun laws are already in place. But for example, this year we were able to pass the red flag bill. That's what it's kind of commonly called. But it essentially allows family members, friends to alert police and law enforcement when there is a concern about somebody's behavior that owns, who owns a gun. And it allows the court to, allows the person to go before a judge and kind of make the case for them having the gun or not in that mindset. And so again, people, I think, assume, oh, that's already true, right? If somebody is a danger to themselves or others, they can't have a gun. And actually, that hasn't been true. So those kind of red flag laws are actually being passed around the country. I think we were the 14th state or something to pass that kind of red flag bill, or sometimes called a protective order. And those are, again, just in cases of extreme risk. So, Michelle, I know you've had a long history and advocacy in this area and with domestic violence. So talk to me a little bit about what the issues are when it comes to restraining orders or situations of domestic violence and guns. Sure. Well, you know, living with a domestic violence perpetrator who is also a gun owner significantly increases the chances of lethality in that domestic violence scenario. And so really enforcing policy that's already in place is an issue. And ensuring that the laws that we have in place that deny domestic violence abusers access to guns needs to be upheld each and every time. If you live with a domestic violence abuser who hasn't done your 16 times more likely to be killed by that gun 16 times more likely in the United States. 50 women each month are killed by a perpetrator that has a gun. And on any given day in the United States, 4.5 million American women have been threatened by by a gun. So this is this is definitely a lethal issue that is compounded by the issues of domestic violence and already living with somebody who's incredibly dangerous. So I think one thing you also I read this morning is there's no federal law that prevents domestic abusers from. So again, it's has it's up to the states and every community to work on those issues. Right. So in Hawaii, if somebody were to access a restraining order, which not all survivors of domestic violence access a restraining order and not all of them should, a person who is experiencing domestic violence is the expert on what's going to access them the most safety and it's not in all cases that a TRO is that path. For those who do seek a restraining order when that restraining order is served, officers should be taking away any guns asking for any guns and removing them. That makes total sense. Yes, makes absolute sense. We know anecdotally that doesn't always happen. We know that domestic violence abusers when served at TRO can be quite evasive about their gun ownership and deny that they have a gun or say that it's already been surrendered when it has not and the issue is essentially dropped and that person continues to live with the gun. We've heard countless stories over the years where he's sitting in a chair while this restraining order is being served and there's one right under the cushion or they come and remove nine or 10 weapons but he has three or four more stashed and so they're still they're still present. The other thing that not everyone knows about this intersection with restraining orders or domestic violence and gun ownership is that when an officer arrives to a domestic to respond to a domestic violence incident in that moment they are able to seize guns if they believe with any reason that a gun was used to threaten this person or used in the incident to harm them in any way. So they have the authority by state statute to go ahead and take away guns at that time. So I really want to get that message out there to survivors that it's not just the intersection of a restraining order being served which can happen and often doesn't happen for about nine to 15 days after you've presented your case to a judge but in that moment that very night as is often the case or day. So clarify that a little bit. So if you're in a situation in which you're fearing for your life you know there's guns in the home and you do not have to wait until the TRO is served. That's right. As long as the officer believes with reason that that gun is threatening or was used to threaten in that incident so as long as the survivor can you know clearly explain to the officer there's a gun here it's threatening my life. We've had a very serious domestic violence incident I am not safe in this home if that gun is in this home they can take. And when are the I would ask least safe times are the most dangerous times for people when they're in domestic violence situations? The most dangerous time is leaving in fact you know we've we've heard how many times we've maybe even thought it ourselves because until we know we don't know but that's that adage why would she stay why don't you just leave and in all actuality leaving is one of the most dangerous things you can do in a domestic violence situation. In fact 75% of all domestic violence homicide victims are murdered the day they leave or within the first six months and when it really is accessing a community network of safety accessing the shelters at accessing advocacy using the arm of the criminal justice system if that is going to support or help you and and finding finding your unique path path to safety because it is a very dangerous time and I don't say that to encourage people to stay but I say that to encourage people to plan for safety to leave because it can be very dangerous and one of the first things an advocate does when they meet with a best survivor or someone who's actively being victimized is a lethality assessment and one of the primary questions on that lethality assessment is does your abuser have a gun is their guns in the house or do they have access to guns because sometimes the cases no my abuser does not have a gun but his best friend does and it's easy to get to one and I'm afraid that he will so that's a key piece of information when we're assessing the lethality likelihood for someone who's was in a domestic violence and so say you know someone wants to seek help wants to get out of relationship and be safe or say that you may have your suspicions about someone how first of all would you ask or approach that subject and secondly where do people find help sure so the thing about asking for asking somebody is knowing that it needs to be a revolving door conversation because somebody may they may tell you yes confirm I'm in a domestic violence relationship but not ready to do anything about it and they need you to be unwavering without judgment that you are there for them every step of the way and that you understand that leaving is a process it's a journey and just because someone told you that they're going through it does not mean tomorrow it can suddenly change so but I think I would encourage people to ask I would encourage people to make talking about the our intimate relationships and the fear or violence that we experience in this community more open because that helps open doors to to navigating safety and to getting the help that you need so the more we can normalize the conversation and not say I just suspect this of only you but I'm asking all of my friends I'm asking my sisters I'm asking my neighbors I'm talking to people in my church I'm talking about it what would be a way to talk about how do you bring that up because obviously it'd be very sensitive and for some people they may be very fearful to release that information what would be an appropriate way to ask you could even say something like I've recently learned that over 25 percent of women have experienced domestic violence or experiencing it right now and I'm making it a practice to ask everyone I know if there's some way I can help them or to let them know that I'm here for you if something ever should happen so again normalizing it and saying I've recently learned or you know I understand that this is an issue that affects every one of us know somebody who's currently being abused whether we know it or not yes and so letting your community know I know that and I'm doing my best to uncover and to let people know that as a member of this community I'm here I'm here for you excellent where do you refer people to if they're in a domestic violence situation um well first of all shelter if they need immediate help to access shelter one of the one of the resources we have that's easy to access quickly is the Hawaii State Coalition against domestic violence and you can access their website it's just their acronym www.hscadb.org they have a membership tab and if you click on that membership tab on their website it lists all of the domestic violence services that are available statewide so it gives the number the 24 hour number to shelter hotline as well as you know if you need legal advocacy if you need a restraining order if you're looking for support groups and even if you are someone who is abusive to your partner if you need help and education and counseling to to move on so all of those resources are are available at the coalition and there are many domestic violence programs in the state that again range from shelter services to legal advocacy helping people get a restraining order a divorce navigate custody excellent a lot of issues we're going to take a quick break we're going to explore this a little bit more when we come back we're going to talk about the Be Smart program which is one of the programs to help eliminate guns and gun violence we'll be right back Aloha I'm Gwen Harris the host here at Think Tech Hawaii a digital media company serving the people of Hawaii we provide a video platform for citizen journalists to raise public awareness in Hawaii we are a Hawaii nonprofit that depends on the generosity of the supporters to keep on going we'd be grateful if you go to ThinkTechHawaii.com and make a donation to support us now thanks so much Hey Aloha my name is Andrew Lanning I'm the host of Security Matters Hawaii airing every Wednesday here on Think Tech Hawaii live from the studios I'll bring you guests I'll bring you information about the things in security that matter to keeping you safe your co-workers safe your family safe to keep our community safe we want to teach you about those things in our industry that you know may be a little outside of your experience so please join me because security matters Aloha. Welcome back to Family Affairs at Think Tech Hawaii I'm Lisa Kimuori your host we're talking today with Michelle Raca and Erica Yamauchi about firearm violence and the laws that we have in Hawaii when we left off we were talking a little bit about the relationship between domestic violence and guns can you talk to me a little bit more about that and specifically with some of the mass shootings that we've seen more so at the national level what kind of intersection is there with domestic violence well almost always in mass shootings the perpetrator has started with some kind of domestic violence so we've seen that time and time again with Sandy Hook for example before he went to elementary school he actually murdered his mom at their home so yeah and I think that you know is a very common storyline what we've that we've seen with mass shootings so there's a huge direct link and not even in our most recent mass shootings I mean which is almost always the case but even older cases where that incident that took place I believe in Austin at the university where in the tower there was a sniper shooting situation on campus and he had just murdered I believe both his girlfriend and his mother leading up to that incident so it's woven in deeply and it has been since pretty much the onset of this phenomenon of mass of mass shooting the sniper in Washington DC back when in the early 90s when I was a kid same thing at the time the media was not discussing this link that this that this shooter was a lethal domestic violence perpetrator his partner did survive and has gone on to educate the community on a national level about this intersection and tries to draw more attention to it but it's part of media training that we really need to promote and and educate more that this is deeply linked and that the two go hand in hand how much of it has to do with say toxic masculinity how much of that is kind of woven in there I mean yeah I think it has to do with yeah aggressive behavior in general yeah toxic masculinity teaching boys and young men that that's kind of the only path to being a man and some of the programs in mom's man action to like the be smart program are all about modeling we're not again anti-gun it's just modeling responsible behavior around guns and so that's definitely part of it too starts at that young age of being fathers or uncles or parents friends using guns in maybe aggressive ways and I don't have as much knowledge on the mentality of mass of mass shooters but to speak to the domestic violence aspect it's about having power and control it's about seeing your family members as your property of having ownership and using violence to gain their submission and often you know domestic violence does it start with gun violence on a first date it's a process it's a process of escalation it's a process of using tactics to gain submission and then leveling up those tactics when those know when they no longer work so we do see an increase in the relationship between the survivors independence and the the force that's used use to try to get the partner to submit or family members to submit and I think that this link to mass shootings and I you know I don't know what can't say with certainty but that it's another escalated step beyond taking control of the family through lethal actions of the family but now into community is there any type of say profile of what a domestic abuser looks like I always say gosh that would be so nice because if they just all wore the same hat or had the same tattoo we could just train everybody around avoiding that but unfortunately there is no there is no common profile there the things that they have in common aren't necessarily in personality but rather in characteristics so for example having the concept of very rigid gender roles I'm the breadwinner I'm the king of this castle it's my rules or or you will be punished sort of mentality it's about being very controlling possessive another thing that's common and almost always is their own isolation and codependency a lot of people think it's the victim in a domestic violence situation who is the codependent personality but really it's the opposite it's the abuser who is codependent on the person he is in an intimate relationship with for a sense of power and for a sense of having control in one's life so very dependent on that person to have those emotional needs met and therefore extremely threatened when that person takes their independence back or tries to achieve more independence which is why we see lethality increase with with leaving and especially if there's a gun involved what about the link between violence during pregnancy there it's huge unfortunately in domestic violence relationships pregnancy is another indicator of lethality and it can be it's absolutely one of the most dangerous times in a violent intimate relationship another factor that happens with pregnancy is that where sites of injury when the female is not pregnant tend to be the face the neck and the arms or the head during pregnancy it's hyper concentrated to the abdomen so serious consequences for for the developing fetus as well but yes an extremely dangerous time it's extremely lethal time and so we really want to talk to it and reach out to to families who are experiencing pregnancy about their safety and to ensure that they know where resources are to help them also done a lot of advocacy over the years to engage ob gyns and those who care for pregnant women medically along the way on how to screen appropriately and how to talk about violence in the home and is there a link between the say severity of violence or the frequency of violence and the presence of guns yes i would say absolutely and so the be smart program Erica that mom's demand action is working on talk to me a little bit more about that and what it's what what are the goals how does it work yeah so it was developed as a framework to help families kind of think about yeah because again we see this you know i think a lot in the media too little kids unintentionally shooting themselves or their siblings or a friend and actually that happens about 160 times a year and so we mom's demand action created this be smart framework to kind of inform the public about what we can all do to help prevent these types of deaths and injuries in children and so there's an acronym smart that helps us remember it so s stands for secure all guns in homes and vehicles m stands for modeling again modeling that responsible behavior around guns a is for ask and that means asking when your child is sleeping over at a friend's house or just having a play date and i really like this one because again it just encourages people to talk about guns more openly and that's going to be so crucial in creating gun safety culture i think in us and so yeah i wonder if your your child is going over to a friend's house asking um do you all have firearms in the home are they secured um and so children can't gain access to them that's a and then um so smart and then r is recognizing the role that guns also play in suicides so um i don't think a lot of people know this as well but more than 600 kids uh children teenagers die by suicide every year in the u.s. i'm using guns that they have in the home that were unsecured and then um tees tell others about the be smart program and again try to make that culture change about talking about guns openly in the community i mean i can imagine it be an uncomfortable situation or conversation potentially to have say with a playmate of a friend how i mean have you had experience with that kind of conversation yet and how would that go i have actually um and so i um i did actually over text message so that's sometimes easier right to have that conversation um and my daughters are still pretty young but um i didn't try to make it a point with my older daughter when um she was at a play date to ask um yeah like and i encourage um parents to think about it just like if you would say um yeah may has a egg allergy saying or she just ate an fyi um you know we don't have guns in our home if you're ever coming over but i wanted to ask you all have guns and are they secured um so just making it part of that kind of logistical conversation i think we all as moms have um about allergies and if we have a dog or a cat that kind of thing so thinking about legislation a little bit has there been anything in hawaii that that mom's demand action has been working on is there something that you're working towards what would be kind of the ideal picture well i just yeah speak on behalf of um the mom's um chapter in hawaii has gotten a lot of momentum in the last couple years around these yeah um what we call common sense gun bills and so this year like i mentioned the red flag um bill was passed and um we're really happy that that was um and it's going to be signed by um governor igay um hopefully soon but um yeah so similar um legislation um i think pretty much every um while we worked on the past two or three years has been related in some way to um kind of reducing these domestic violence incidents too um and so those are kind of you know the bills that were focused on is just really common sense um defense safety legislation um and i yeah i want to encourage everybody you know that's listening if they're interested to um get involved actually national um gun violence awareness day is this weekend June 7th um we call wear orange so encouraging people to wear orange is um an event on wahu and on mawi um and so you can go to wear at orange um dot org um to kind of learn more about the events happening excellent all right well definitely make sure everybody checks out the wear orange event coming up this weekend um with that thank you so much for being here today and thanks for talking about this really important issue um thank you for tuning in this is family affairs on think tuck hawaii i'm your host lisa kimura and we'll see you next time