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INVOLVING WOMEN IN GUN CONTROL FOR PEACE MAGDA COSS Magda Cross is a passionate gun control advocate and the Director of Inspiring Girls, Mexico.
For activists from other regions, witnessing Australia’s advances in gun control provoke admiration, but are also a painful reminder that progress has been much slower in other parts of the world. Many countries have seen an increase in gun proliferation and violence, especially the region of Latin America, which continues to be the deadliest region in the world, mostly because of gun violence. My home country, Mexico, suffers from an epidemic of gun violence. According to national authorities,1 more than 90 people are murdered every day. Ten of them are women, six of whom die by gunshot. However, the presence of firearms in homes is so normalised that the peril is not identified until too late, even by the women themselves who think that their partners would not use the weapons against them or their children. In addition to the traditional arms trafficking routes, new forms of smuggling now enable the production of weapons that bypass regulation. Modular components can be bought and assembled into unmarked ‘ghost guns’, and blueprints for 3D printed guns are freely available on the web. This type of violence affects society as a whole but affects women in particular. There are a variety of reasons for this, but perhaps one of the most obvious is that men are more likely to own guns than women.2 THE NEED FOR A GENDERED NATURE WHEN THINKING ABOUT GUNS Myths persist about gun possession: that it will bring peace to our countries and security to our homes, that it’s not dangerous in the hands of the ‘good guys’. The idea that ‘having a gun makes a real man’ also persists. What naturally develops from this adage is a requirement to address the issue of gun violence through a gendered lens. We can collect data, develop policies, and ratify international treaties, but we must also act to break the links between guns and toxic masculinity. Traditional gender roles are fundamental to the continuation of gun violence. Understanding these gendered dynamics and transforming them will have profound effects on disarmament and prevention of domestic violence. Most gun users are men. Most gunshot victims are also men.3 Men also dominate the officially-sanctioned armed domains of the police, military and private security. Gun possession feeds into and confirms the problem-solving strategy of brute force: whoever can exert or threaten the greatest physical injury ‘wins’. In Mexican culture, guns are a common symbol of male empowerment and masculinity. This motivates men to acquire guns, many times illegally. Research shows that the presence of a firearm in a home increases the risk of violent death of a family member, but in the case of women the risk is three times higher.4
