February 28, 2022, Sacramento, California. David Fidel Mora-Rojas shot and killed his three daughters, Samantha, age 10, Sarah, age 9, Samia, 13; the children met with their father during a supervised visit at the “Church in Sacramento,” a nondenominational Christian church.

Fifty-nine-year-old Nathaniel Kong was also shot and killed by Rojas.

Then the 39-year-old killed himself.  

I’m Gloria Moraga; this is One-On-One; welcome to my podcast.

The Brutal Truth about Domestic Violence.

Here’s a little background on one case. Multiply it times many.

On February 23, 2022, five days before he killed his daughters and Nathaniel Kong, David Rojas was arrested for driving under the influence, assaulting a peace officer, and later assaulting medical staff.

Rojas was also in the United States on a non-immigrant visitor’s visa, but it has expired.

He was in the United States illegally.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) won’t say when his visa expired. But they requested that they be notified when he was released from a Merced County jail.

Most of this information is from police reports, press releases, and online news reports.

According to reports, Immigration authorities wanted to be notified. But they were not. According to the Merced County Sheriff’s Office, Rojas was released on 15,000 dollars bail, and ICE was not notified because of Sanctuary Laws, which protect immigrants from ICE.

Domestic Abusers and Guns

David Rojas was a wife-beater and a domestic abuser.

Now alone without her three girls, his wife told police she lived in fear because of the beatings and abuse.

This is the press release from the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office.

“The mother of his three children had obtained a restraining order against him after a domestic violence incident in April 2021. The Family Law Court issued the restraining order through the Superior Court of California, County of Sacramento. The restraining order states explicitly that Mora-Rojas cannot own or possess firearms or ammunition. After the shooting, Rojas had in his possession an AR-style rifle. The gun had no serial number or manufacturer markings and is what the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives refers to as a Privately Made Firearm (PMF). The rifle had an extended 30 round magazine.”

Ghost Guns

Rojas killed his children, and Nathaniel Kong, with an unregistered “Ghost Gun.” Privately Made Firearm (PMF) is also known as a Ghost Gun and they are growing in popularity.

This is a good point for me to explain the AR-style-Rifle.

ArmaLite Rifle

The AR in “AR-15” rifle stands for ArmaLite rifle, after the company that developed it in the 1950s. “AR” does NOT stand for “assault rifle” or “automatic rifle.”

I’m going to repeat this.

Rojas was in the US illegally; he beat his wife, had a restraining order, and was arrested for drunk driving, attacked a cop, attacked hospital staff, but he was still released, free to go and get a ghost gun and kill his innocent children and an innocent man.

Domestic Violence Gun Homicides

EVERY 16 HOURS SOMEWHERE of the U.S., a woman is fatally shot by a current or former intimate partner.

“When Abusers Keep Their Guns”

I’m quoting from an investigation by “Reveal” from “The Center for Investigative Reporting. The article is called “When Abusers Keep their Guns.” It shows that domestic violence gun homicides increased 58 percent over the last decade.

Again, this is according to never-before-published FBI data. It was analyzed for Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting by James Alan Fox, a professor, and criminologist at Northeastern University.

Fox found that “the pandemic has been an especially lethal period for abuse victims; gun homicides involving intimate partners rose a stunning 25% in 2020 compared with the previous year, to the highest level in almost three decades. Women accounted for more than two-thirds of the victims shot and killed by intimate partners last year.”

The articles document stories of women being attacked and brutalized by domestic partners; the women do everything possible to protect themselves, including calling the police, getting restraining orders, and more.

The State-To-State Game of Russian Roulette

The laws protecting women from their partners are weak from state to state.

And time after time, the domestic abuser only gets a slap on the wrist, and when they are released, they are free to get a gun and fatally kill women and children, just like in the Rojas case.

Let’s face it. Women are a low priority when it comes to legislation that protects us.

We women do not have a powerful lobby like the gun lobby. 

S.3623 – Violence Against Women 2022 Reauthorization Act

On March 10, 2022, The United States Senate gave final approval to the 1.5 trillion-dollar spending bill. It will fund the federal government through Sept. 30.

In that legislation was the $13.6 billion to aid Ukraine.

Included in that budget was the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. That is the S.3623 I mentioned.

The Law was created 30 years ago.

Law aimed at preventing domestic violence, stalking, and sexual assault lapsed in 2019.

President Joe Biden helped create the law as a senator in 1994, but it needed updating. So a bipartisan group of senators drafted an expanded version.

The 2022 reauthorization of VAWA strengthens this landmark law, including by:

• Reauthorizing all current VAWA grant programs until 2027 and, in many cases, increasing authorization levels. 
• Increasing services and support for survivors from underserved and marginalized communities—including for LGBTQ+ survivors of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking; funding survivor-centered, community-based restorative practice services; and increasing support for culturally specific services and services in rural communities.

Rather than read all the things that it does. I will include a link to the entire legislation on my website.

But I will tell you what the reauthorization will NOT do. It will not do more to remove guns from abusive domestic partners.

Gun Control – Removed From Reauthorization

The National Rifle Association opposed closing the so-called “Boyfriend Loophole.” Republicans attacked that provision, calling it unnecessary “gun control.” However, proponents have said it would save lives.

The “Boyfriend Loophole” Remains Open

When senators announced they had reached a deal, they said they got the reauthorization done only because the Gun Control provision was removed.

“I think we can almost let out a sigh of relief,” said Republican Sen. Joni Ernst, a survivor of domestic violence and sexual assault who is a sponsor of the bill.

Asked why the provision was dropped, Ernst told CNN, “Otherwise, it doesn’t get done.”

Here is what we “women” lost.

Federal law bars felons and some people convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence from possessing firearms.

But state and local law enforcement authorities, who handle most domestic violence cases, can’t enforce those federal laws, and federal prosecutors haven’t prioritized them, so violations of gun bans often go unpunished.

Also, federal law and most state statutes don’t address how to retrieve weapons from people who aren’t legally permitted to have them; gun bans are primarily enforced on an honor system.

Deadly Domestic Violence Statistics

These Statistics are from Injury Epidemiology, which published a comprehensive study, “The role of domestic violence in fatal mass shootings in the United States, 2014-2019.”

“Guns are the No. 1 weapon in domestic violence killings in the U.S. – just owning a firearm makes an abuser five times more likely to take a partner’s life. People with a history of violence against a partner, including stalking or strangulation, are more likely to commit more heinous acts.

Earlier this year, researchers reported that more than two-thirds of recent mass shootings in the U.S. involved perpetrators who killed partners or relatives or had a history of domestic abuse.

Domestic violence, including intimate partner violence, is a public health crisis in the U.S. Nearly one in four women and one in seven men will experience severe physical violence at the hands of their intimate partner in their lifetime.

Firearms contribute significantly to domestic violence in the U.S. — to threaten, coerce, control, and kill.

Around 4.5 million women in the United States have been threatened with a gun, and nearly 1 million women have been shot or shot at by an intimate partner.  

Over half of all intimate partner homicides are committed with firearms. A woman is five times more likely to be murdered when her abuser has access to a gun.”

Firearms contribute significantly to domestic violence in the U.S. — to threaten, coerce, control, and kill. Around 4.5 million women in the United States have been threatened with a gun, and nearly 1 million women have been shot or shot at by an intimate partner.  Over half of all intimate partner homicides are committed with firearms. A woman is five times more likely to be murdered when her abuser has access to a gun. To reduce the number of domestic violence homicides, we must ensure that people who abuse their intimate partners or family do not have access to weapons.”