Mississippi had the highest rate of pregnancy- and postpartum-related gun deaths among 28 states analyzed, according to a study by The Trace using Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. The Trace calculated roughly 15 deaths tied to gun violence for every 100,000 births in the state and found that homicides exceeded obstetric causes nationwide.
The Trace analysis found 36 pregnant or recently pregnant women were killed with guns in Mississippi between 2018 and 2024; 81% of those victims were Black, the report said. “We have women in Mississippi who are dying during pregnancy — not because they have medical problems, but because they are being beaten to death or shot and killed in their own home,” said Stacey Riley, chief executive officer of the Gulf Coast Center for Nonviolence in Biloxi.
Advocates and researchers cited lenient gun laws, restricted abortion access and poverty as drivers of the violence. “There’s decades of research showing that a gun in the house, and especially a house that’s experiencing domestic violence, is really, really dangerous,” said Maeve Wallace, a reproductive epidemiologist at the University of Arizona. Reproductive advocates have pointed to preliminary research showing abortion restrictions after the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision increased intimate partner violence by 7% to 10%, and staff at Access Reproductive Care Southeast said calls from Mississippi to its healthline rose 66% in the last year.
Advocates and family members described individual cases that mirror the statistics. Documents obtained by Mississippi Today show that Keli Mornay filed a restraining order on May 28, 2021, and was shot to death with her 7-month-old son on June 6, 2021, in Biloxi; authorities said the suspect later died by suicide. In Holmes County, McKayla Winston was found dead on July 1, 2019, while pregnant; her mother, Yvetty Brown, said the father of the child was charged with capital murder and kidnapping, pleaded not guilty and was later released on bond. A spokesperson for the Mississippi Department of Public Safety said the state crime laboratory is still investigating that case.
Community groups said they are working to interrupt cycles of violence. Geno Womack, executive director of Operation Good in Jackson, described outreach that includes violence intervention, reintegration programs and safe routes for children. “Young people become desensitized to brutality,” Womack said, and his group focuses on addressing underlying causes to prevent further deaths, he said.
