Women hardly own a gun, seldom ever use it and, unlike men, they are much more often victims than perpetrators. This is particularly staggering in the context of domestic violence. Most of the gun violence against women is committed by someone they trust; husbands, boyfriends, exes and it most often happens in a place they consider the safest: at home. Women are also the ones most likely to perceive guns as a threat to their own and their families’ security.

The tradition with a long overdue expiry date

The occasional shootings at weddings, New Year’s celebrations, or the son’s baptism party, still claim victims in South East Europe. Powered by the force of gravity, bullets that go up must come down and they usually claim victims resulting in tragic stories like these “a stray bullet hit a woman in the head. She died”, “3 women were accidentally shot and injured by a 36-year-old man in celebratory shooting during a wedding” or “a 12-year-old girl was injured by a stray bullet on her way from school.”

Dangers of guns

Gun violence does not happen only on the streets, between criminal gangs or to outlaws. 613 accidental gun incidents have taken place in the region since 2014. The victims of these accidents were a “1 year old girl shot and injured by a 25-year-old man in a hunting accident”, a “80-year-old man accidentally shot a rifle and injured a 15-year-old person” and many more.

Suicides claim victims, from teenagers to grandparents, almost every day, from cities to villages, across the entire region. And when guns are available, the victim is left with no second chance. Many suicide stories sound like this: “a mother shot and killed her daughter and then committed suicide”, “father & daughter commit suicide together. With a handgun.”, “62-year-old man committed suicide with an automatic weapon.” 268 similar incidents have been reported by the media in South East Europe from 2014 to date.

What does armed violence look like? Who commits the crimes? Who is mostly affected by guns? What do we fail to see while trying to prevent armed violence? Is your hometown affected by gun crime? To find out, check the Armed Violence Monitoring Platform.

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