Kunc's Colorado Edition

The trauma of domestic violence is a scar that survivors carry with them for many years — and often silently. A recent report from the Colorado Attorney General’s Office tells us that more people in Colorado are enduring this kind of abuse, and not surviving it. It shows the number of domestic violence deaths in 2022 was roughly 1.5 times higher in comparison to the last seven years. A lot of factors seem to be intensifying this crisis. For one, in Colorado, as in many other states, a lack of affordable housing makes it especially difficult to escape an abuser. Firearms also play a major role. More than 80 percent of domestic violence deaths were the result of gun injuries. This tracks with recent research from Stanford University showing people who have a gun in the home face a much higher likelihood of dying from homicides, a risk of so-called second-hand gun ownership. “When we think about the second-hand risks of gun ownership, we're really talking about a population that is predominantly female,” said Da