SALT LAKE CITY — Groups working to prevent suicides and domestic violence said Tuesday they are dismayed over gun-control measures that have stalled in the Utah Legislature after several Utahns were shot and killed at their homes last week.
“We are extremely frustrated that these gun violence prevention bills don’t even get a hearing,” said Jenn Oxborrow, the executive director of the Utah Coalition on Domestic Violence.
“This is about protecting lives, especially the lives of children and victims of domestic violence.”
Yet guns aren’t the only danger, the groups said at a Tuesday news conference. A lack of affordable housing in the Beehive State means those victimized at home often cannot afford to leave, creating a dilemma that Jody Robinson, 49, said she knows well.
Robinson was among those cheering an affordable housing measure now pending at the Legislature. Proponents say it could help more women move out and away from their abusers because it would provide vouchers to help cover the cost of rent at a new place.
“If you do try to leave like I did and then come back, you’re at potential of a lot more risk,” said Robinson, who has testified in support of other domestic-violence measures and attended Tuesday’s event to learn more about this year’s bills.
Robinson and her three children cycled in and out of Utah shelters for a time before eventually returning to the home she had shared with her abuser, she told the Deseret News.
“That gives them more power and control, too, because, ‘Oh, look. She tried to leave and it didn’t work out, so see? I’ve just proven to her by the system that she really can’t leave me,’” she said. “It’s a very, very dangerous thing for a victim.”
In Utah, there’s a misconception that each victim of domestic violence finds a way into a shelter, said Erin Jemison, the director of public policy with YWCA Utah. But in reality, most are still at home because they can’t afford to leave, she said.
That could change under the $35 million proposal from Sen. Jake Anderegg, R-Lehi. His bill, SB39, would establish a rent assistance program to help up to 4,000 people.
“We can’t ask women to escape violence and abusive situations if they can’t make it on their own, and housing is the No. 1 reason that they can’t,” Jemison said.
She and others working to prevent domestic violence called attention to several bills they say could help curb the number of those killed by loved ones in Utah.
The public push comes a week after Rep. Steve Handy, R-Layton, said he may abandon his third effort to pass a “red flag” bill amid opposition from fellow Republicans in the House of Representatives and gun rights advocates.
The proposal, which failed in the the 2018 and 2019 legislative sessions, would allow a family member or police to kickstart a civil court process wherein a judge could return a person’s weapon or order it be taken away for up to a year.
HB229 has not had a public hearing in the 2020 Legislature. While Utah has a low rate of homicides overall, it’s concerning that many are women killed by men who were their intimate partners, Oxborrow said.
Her group opposes a related bill from Sen. Daniel Thatcher, R-West Valley City, in part because it would allow police but not a family member or other cohabitant to initiate the legal process to have a person’s weapons taken away.
Clark Aposhian, chairman of the Utah Shooting Sports Council, has previously said extreme risk protection orders are unconstitutional and can be misused, arguing the existing law is sufficient.
Oxborrow called attention to four domestic violence-related deaths in just the past several days:
• On Friday, police say Jeremy Reed Harris, 40, injured his ex-wife and killed her boyfriend, Nathan Edgar Brower, when he opened fire at Brower’s West Valley City home while two children were inside. Harris later shot and killed himself inside a nearby house of someone he didn’t know.
• On Monday, police found Natalie Thurber, 34, dead of a gunshot wound inside a Salt Lake apartment after responding to her call for help. They believe she had died before they arrived. Officers exchanged gunfire with a man inside and arrested him after a brief foot chase.
• On Feb. 3, the Marc Dominic Neal, 56, was shot and killed by police who responded to a report of some type of conflict between Neal and his mother in a trailer home on the Millcreek property she owned.
Other bills with the groups’ support:
• A campus safety bill sponsored by House Minority Assistant Whip Jani Iwamoto, D-Holladay, SB80, that would require the Utah State Board of Regents to study public safety activities on campus, find ways to improve them and report those findings to lawmakers. awaits a vote in the Senate.
• SB102, a proposal seeking to reduce the penalty for bigamy from a felony to an infraction, from Sen. Deidre Henderson, R-Spanish Fork.
• A measure from House Minority Leader Brian King, D-Salt Lake City, to extend background checks to gun shows and online sales. HB109 is among the gun violence-related bills that have not yet had a hearing this year.
• An in-the-works proposal from Sen. Todd Weiler, R-Woods Cross, that would somehow tweak Utah’s law on protective orders. Weiler declined to give specifics but told advocates, “We’ll keep at this until we get it right.”
• HB116, a measure from Rep. Angela Romero, D-Salt Lake City, to create a task force studying the issue of Native American women who are missing or were murdered.
Free and confidential help and support for victims and survivors of domestic violence is available 24/7 at 1-800-897-LINK (5465) or visiting udvc.org.