NNEDV Applauds Target’s Sensible Community Safety Policy

July 2, 2014

July 2, 2014 – Today, Target announced a new policy requesting that customers not carry firearms into any Target stores, even in communities that have “open carry” laws. NNEDV applauds this stance against gun violence and effort to promote safety in both workplaces and communities across the country.

“Target’s policy exemplifies good corporate citizenship,” said Kim Gandy, President and CEO of NNEDV, “and it will help ensure that its customers and employees are able to shop and work in safe and non-intimidating environments.”

Target joins Chipotle, Chili’s, and a number of other corporations in adopting policies that ban the carrying of firearms in their stores – but Target is, to date, the largest company to take such action.

While safe public spaces like Target stores are important for all who shop and work there, prohibitions on open carrying may be especially important for the safety of survivors of domestic violence. Women in the United States are eleven times more likely to be murdered with guns than women in other high-income countries [1]; and more than three times as many women are murdered with guns used by their husbands or intimate partners than are murdered with strangers’ guns, knives, or other weapons combined [2]. Additionally, most of the recent public and workplace mass shootings have begun with or included an element of domestic violence [3].

“NNEDV is grateful to Target for acting to keep all of us safe,” said Gandy, “and we look forward to working with them and other companies across the country to increase safety for domestic violence survivors at work and in the community.”

For more information about domestic violence and workplace safety, visit Workplaces Respond to Domestic & Sexual Violence: A National Resource Center.

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[1] D. Hemenway and E.G. Richardson, “Homicide, Suicide, and Unintentional Firearm Fatality: Comparing the United States with Other High-Income Countries, 2003,” 70 Journal of Trauma 238-42 (2011), available at doi:1097/TA.0b013e3181dbaddf.

[2] When Men Murder Women: An Analysis of 2010 Homicide Data: Females Murdered by Males in Single Victim/Single Offender Incidents, Violence Policy Center, Washington, D.C.. 2012,http://www.vpc.org/studies/wmmw2012.pdf; When Men Murder Women: An Analysis of 2011 Homicide data: Females Murdered by males in Single Victim/Single Offender Incidents, Violence Policy Center, 2013, www.vpc.org/studies/wmmw2013.pdf, (and see prior annual When Men Murder Women analyses). Additionally, handguns are more likely than rifles or shotguns to be used in homicides in which men kill women. In 2010 and 2011, handguns were used, respectively, in 70 and 73 percent of the cases where men used firearms to kill women. Ibid.

[3] Everytown for Gun Safety, “Analysis of Recent Mass Shootings (2013), available athttp://libcloud.s3.amazonaws.com/9/56/14/1/analysis-of-recent-mass-shootings.pdf.