Kelly Roskam of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions discusses a Supreme Court case that will decide if a federal law prohibiting possession of firearms by people subject to domestic violence protection orders is constitutional
Kelly Roskam of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions discusses a Supreme Court case that will decide if a federal law prohibiting possession of firearms by people subject to domestic violence protection orders is constitutional
It’s not even a gun rights thing. It goes deeper. The conservative movement has the ideal of the Pater Familias, the male head of the family who holds the power of life and death over the members. In every way that matters, the Pater Familias owns their wife and children.
That’s the traditional family that they want to bring back.
The thing is, even in ancient Rome (where the term was created) the community would often step in and take the family away if the abuse got too bad.
All throughout human history, if a husband beat his family too much, the other men in the community might “have a word” with him. Sometimes that was a quiet conversation, and sometimes it was a beating with the wife and kids staying suddenly with her sister.
It was only after we started living in cities that people started “minding their own business”.
And yes, there have always been abusers who have been clever about hiding their abuse. But the conservative ideal of a man who could do whatever he wanted to his own family, never actually existed.