Chenoweth Denies Trivializing Spousal Abuse She Was Criticized As Displaying ‘A Disturbing Lack Of Knowledge’ Of The Crime

Rep. Helen Chenoweth is defending her campaign to repeal the ban on gun ownership by anyone with a domestic violence conviction. Her critics claim she is trivializing spousal abuse.

“I am not questioning the seriousness of domestic violence,” Chenoweth, a Republican, said in response to that criticism. “I am questioning the wisdom of one law.”

Her written defense came in direct response to Joseph Morisette, a batterer treatment specialist for the Terry Reilly Health Services who said Chenoweth’s statement that a raised voice could result in a domestic violence conviction displayed “a disturbing lack of knowledge” about the crime.

“While domestic violence crimes encompass both physical abuse and ‘unlawful threats,’ it also requires that the perpetrator have the apparent ability to do the violence,” Morisette wrote in a statement appearing in two southwestern Idaho newspapers in recent weeks.

In supporting the gun ban U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., won approval for last year, Morisette cited a string of statistics on violence against women, highlighted by U.S. surgeon general figures that ranked abuse by husbands and partners as the leading cause of injury to women ages 15 to 44 in 1992.

Chenoweth, in her response published in the Idaho Press Tribune in Nampa, said domestic violence was a serious issue but that the gun ban was not one of the “well-thought-out solutions” needed to check it.

Lautenberg’s approach approved as part of a major budget bill last year has numerous problems, she said. It creates a new penalty for a crime by being retroactively applied to those convicted of domestic abuse prior to its passage. That is unconstitutional, she said, and the American Civil Liberties Union has indicated agreement.

Chenoweth also complained that the law essentially ends careers of police and soldiers who “have less-than-perfect histories” but whose “record has been spotless since,” and disarms victims because in some cases police charge both parties in a domestic dispute with domestic violence.

In addition, she contended the law undermines the right of states and judges to deal with domestic violence punishments on a case-by-case basis.

But Morisette said that while domestic violence is a behavior that can be modified, “perpetrators need to learn that society no longer will tolerate violence in or out of the home - not on strangers. not on children and not on those with whom we live.

“Until society sees domestic violence for what it is, and until the police, prosecutors, courts and especially our lawmakers work together to send a clear message, women, children, our elders and even men trapped in violent situations will continue to suffer from domestic violence,” he wrote.