Would banning guns, swords or even kitchen utensils stop domestic violence?

Dayton: Woman Shot in Neck Tries to Drive to Hospital

A mother crashes her car after being shot in the neck, and police say her children know who pulled the trigger. Police say Shawntae Henderson was shot in the street near Conners and Germantown. Police believe the victim was trying to drive herself the hospital when the accident happened. The victim slammed into a parked truck, and then into another car. Charles McCullough had just finished cutting the grass when the crash occurred. He says the wounded woman got out of the car and walked around with a bullet lodged in her neck. McCullough said, "She just kept saying, why am I still walking? Why am I not laying dead? I just been shot. I can't understand why I'm still standing." The victim's two children were in the car. They suffered minor injuries. Police believe the kid's father pulled the trigger.

Dayton: Husband indicted in wife's death

Cynthia Jennings-Wade of Kettering was stabbed or cut 30 times by a samurai sword, Montgomery County Prosecutor Mathias H. Heck Jr. disclosed Monday while announcing the indictment of her husband on a charge of murder. Jennings-Wade, 38, died March 25 at the couple's home at 100 Devonhurst, Apt. B. Ronald J. Wade Jr., 49, is charged with murder and is being held in the Montgomery County Jail in lieu of $500,000 bail. If convicted of murder, Wade faces a mandatory prison sentence of 15 years to life in prison. Prosecutors must show he intended to kill his wife. "Every internal organ but two of Cynthia Jennings-Wade received a stab wound or was perforated by this defendant," Heck said, describing it as a "terrible, terrible murder." The sword, 37 inches in length, had been kept at the home, but Heck said prosecutors have not yet learned from Kettering investigators how long Wade had owned the sword.

At the conclusion of this story is a curious comment made by the prosecutor, Mathias Heck. According to the DDN, Heck says couples who are in strained or deteriorating relationships should consider any weapons such as guns or swords and "just get rid of them" while they sort out their emotional issues "just for the sake of the people involved."
Domestic violence presents one of the most complicated challenges to a person concerned with self-defense, because the person in need if protection is often living with the person they are fearful of. Whatever the answer to this problem is, it is painfully clear from these two stories that the answer is NOT to voluntarily render oneself defenseless when involved in an abusive relationship.