Chapter 2 presents the federal response to violence against women. We begin the chapter with a brief overview of the history of domestic violence in the United States. We then analyze the response of Congress to the domestic violence epidemic as compared to the Supreme Court’s response. This detailed presentation reveals the gaps that federal laws havr created by leaving states the option to enforce them and relegating nearly all of the enforcement of domestic violence law to local authorities. This chapter underscores the role and limi, of federal policy in remedying the inequities among women in their personal protection from domestic violence. The lack of a cohesive federal response contributes to all four levels of gender inequality in domestic violence policy.

We explore the policy feedback process and describe how state policies have evolved or devolved in the specific issue area of firearm laws and domestic violence. This chapter demonstrates how and when states respond to the need to reform their domestic violence laws and shows how key actors in that process, including legislators and interest groups, affect the content of the policy that is adopted. The chapter includes examples of states whose definition and scope of domestic violence laws vary and contrast them with each other and with federal law. We present six studies of states that differ in their legislative histories on domestic violence laws to identify key factors that can explain this variation; we test these factors in the quantitative analysis presented in Chapter 4.