Washington, DC: A new report by the Violence Policy Center in Washington has revealed that firearms are the most common weapon used by men to murder women in the United States.

The report, titled “When Men Murder Women: An Analysis of 2006 Homicide Data,” details national and state-by-state information on female homicides involving one female murder victim and one male offender. The study uses the most recent data available from the FBI’s unpublished Supplementary Homicide Report and is released each year to coincide with Domestic Violence Awareness Month in October.

According to the report, a total of 1,836 women in the United States were murdered by men in single victim/single offender incidents in 2006.

For the second year in a row, Nevada led the nation in the rate of women killed by men, with 3.27 of every 100,000 women being a victim of this type of homicide. Nationally, the rate of women killed by men in single victim/single offender instances was 1.29 per 100,000.

Where weapon use could be determined, firearms were the choice of men in 54 percent of murders of women (907 of 1,675 homicides). Of these, 73 percent (666 of 907) were committed with handguns.

In cases where it could be determined if the victim knew her killer, 92 percent

of female victims (1,572 out of 1,701) were murdered by someone they knew. Of these, 60 percent (949 out of 1,572) were wives or intimate acquaintances of their killers.

The Violence Policy Center is a national non-profit educational foundation that conducts research on violence in the United States and works to develop violence-reduction policies and proposals.

The International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) is distributing the report to more than 250 members of its Women’s Network in countries around the world. IANSA is a strategic partner of The Advocacy Project (AP).

Read the full report from the Violence Policy Center.