It Shouldn’t Take Attempted Murder to Disarm Abusers

"All people in positions to keep us safe failed across the board."

By: Kate Ranta

I told them. I told them all that he was dangerous. Nobody would listen to me. No one took me seriously.

At least not until after he tried to murder me.

November 2, 2012, was the night my ex-husband ambushed me at my new apartment in Coral Springs, FL, where he had stalked me and shot through the door using a 9mm Beretta with hollow point bullets. It was the climax of several years of terror my family and I endured as his erratic behavior continued to escalate.

There was the time a year earlier that I heard the gun chamber in our bedroom and I ran outside to call 911, and he emerged with our then three-year-old son and tried to kidnap him.

Police told me to get a restraining order against him, and that they could remove his guns from our home when serving the order. But then they also said that he could go out the next day and legally buy another gun. His name wouldn’t hit any system to bar him from getting one.

I got the restraining order, they took his guns, and he went out and bought a new one: the 9mm Beretta.

He violated the order many times, and each time he was never arrested. Authorities seemed to make excuses instead of doing something about it. He was supposed to stay 500 feet away from our home, but he broke in one day while I was at work. Police said they wouldn’t arrest him because I wasn’t actually home and it’s his house too.

There are too many examples of this negligence than I have room for in this article. Needless to say, police, judges, child protective services, guardians ad litem, psychologists — all people in positions to keep us safe — failed across the board. This was someone who proved he was dangerous over and over again, but nobody with any power to stop him did so.

It took him shooting me twice and my father twice in front of our then four-year-old son – then they suddenly took it seriously and jumped into action. But it shouldn’t have taken us almost dying in front of a young child for the danger to be understood and handled. My mother shouldn’t have almost had to lose three generations of her family in one night before disarming this guy and locking him away forever.

The signs were all there.

Abusive men who enact physical, emotional, psychological, sexual, financial, or any other form of terrorism against women should not have guns. Period.

It should be a one and done offense — you do it one time, no more guns for you. Our right to live our lives safely and peacefully trumps an abuser’s right to own lethal weapons.

Disarm abusers. Now.

Kate Ranta is a survivor of domestic abuse and gun violence and a national advocate and activist; she is the author of Killing Kate

Image of woman by Kleiton Santos from Pixabay