Domestic Violence Laws Must Be Strengthened

I am happily married to a wonderful man; I can’t even imagine circumstances when he would raise a hand to me. That old, violent life was way in the past - or so I thought.

Then I went to the hospital emergency room and saw my daughter - the black eyes, the 20 or 30 bruises on her legs and body. I threw up.

Her batterer had used his hands and feet. Her brain was swollen.

As I looked at her, semiconscious because of the medication, I was filled with fear. Would she die?

Then rage overcame me, and suddenly, the old life was back.

I will kill him, I thought. I didn’t care about the repercussions, the law. They didn’t matter.

I could not sleep; this consumed me. I wanted to use hands, feet and teeth - rip and rend like the animals of National Geographic.

I felt like an animal. All I could think of was mayhem, destruction.

Who would help me? No, I would kill him by myself - I just might get away with it that way.

I would have to find an unregistered gun. I’d make up a story about thinking of buying a 9 mm but wanting to borrow it for a few days to get the feel of it.

I would sit outside the jail. I could gut-shoot him before anyone could get to me. Better yet, I would sit in the parking lot of the local tavern and just wait for him. That would be best.

I was thinking all this in broad daylight - how to kill him and not get caught. For a good two days, it seemed perfectly normal.

Now, I don’t understand. How could I come so close to being a murderer? I am a Christian. How could these thoughts enter my mind?

By the third day, as reality returned, I had decided to work through the system - or at least give it a chance.

The batterer, who was in jail for now, had been out on parole on a previous domestic-violence charge made by another woman. This was the third such complaint filed against him in the past year - twice by my daughter, who had dropped charges the first time.

Domestic violence is a fourth-degree assault charge - a gross misdemeanor. It can be the same as taking someone by the arm and giving him or her a shake.

We need more safety than that for all the women and children who are caught in this trap. We have to change the domestic violence laws.

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