Plain-language legal information for victims of abuse
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May 2022
We created a new Washington Housing Laws section with nine questions to explain the protections offered to victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, unlawful harassment, and stalking. Spanish soon to come! We also added six related statutes to our Selected Washington Statutes page.
We added a statute related to small claims court to our Selected Maryland Statutes page.
Based on 2022 changes to the law, we updated I am a victim of domestic violence and the abuser has a gun. Is that legal? and If the abuser has been convicted of a crime, can s/he keep or buy a gun? in our Nevada State Gun Laws section to reflect the fact that the law no longer prohibits gun possession based on a conviction for a domestic violence misdemeanor. Instead, the law prohibits gun possession due to a conviction for crime of “battery which constitutes domestic violence.” Changes made in English and Spanish.
With help from the Giffords Law Center, we revised three questions in our Maine State Gun Laws section to clarify that:
- The prohibition against a respondent having a firearm when a final PFA is in place only refers to situations where the victim is 1) a current or former spouse; 2) someone s/he has a child in common with; or 3) someone who s/he currently lives with or used to live with. It does not cover other dating partners.
- Possession of a firearm is illegal based on convictions for certain crimes; previously, we indicated that conviction for those crimes meant that the offender could not get a firearm permit.
Changes were made in English and Spanish.
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