The story sounds fishy to me, we only get her side of things, so it’s not “journalism”, but an advocacy piece by her defenders.
True enough; it's by one of their opinion writers who usually covers these type of stories. Most of the time I ignore them (as far as posting) but thought this one interesting enough to do so. Not mentioned is whether the gun was legally purchased or if she got it off the street. Of course now that she's been convicted she can no longer have a firearm for any future encounters.
BTW, one of her previous boyfriends who beat her had his friends intimidate her so badly (slashed tires, etc.) that she refused to testify and the case was dismissed.