Michigan’s Attorney General Dana Nessel stopped by the Kirkbride Hall in Traverse City Thursday to talk about the connection between gun and domestic violence. Thursday’s discussion was planned prior to Tuesday’s school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. The discussion comes after the first year of the pandemic saw a 40% increase in domestic violence calls. “According to the Center for American Progress the risk of death is five times greater in domestic violence situations when a gun is present,” Nessel states. “I think it’s this perfect storm of influences that came together at the same time and created this exponential rise in domestic violence cases.” She also cited that 56% of women murdered by an intimate partner were killed by a firearm.