In 2002, obstetric specialists in Atlanta published one of the city’s first, most comprehensive studies of maternal death records. By analyzing the deaths of pregnant and postpartum women in one of the area’s hospitals from 1949 to 2000, the study found that a spike in homicides, first apparent in the 1970s, was outpacing other obstetric causes of death.

The study was evidence of an enduring crisis: Pregnant women and birthing people are more likely to die by homicide than any other obstetric-related cause. Guns are used in a majority of these killings.

This long-standing American reality is the subject of Trace public health reporter Fairriona Magee’s latest investigation, which has been over a year in the making. In her piece, co-published with The 19th, Magee examines the data and myriad social factors behind this overlooked crisis. At the center of the piece are the narratives of mothers dealing with loss and seeking justice for their daughters — stories numbers could never tell. Magee’s feature is beautifully written and photographed. I hope you’ll spend some time with it today.

From The Trace

What to Know Today

Since 2000, scores of people have been killed or injured by shooters who believed that they were handling an unloaded gun because the magazine had been removed or dislodged, not realizing that a single bullet remained in the chamber. A simple, low-tech device known as a magazine disconnect, patented over a century ago, offers a straightforward way to prevent pistols from firing when a magazine is removed. But guns are exempt from federal consumer product safety regulations, and gunmakers, although aware of the danger, aren’t required to include magazine disconnects in their weapons — so for the most part, they don’t. [NBC]  

The U.S. Justice Department last week announced a police reform agreement with Louisville, Kentucky, the city where officers shot and killed Breonna Taylor inside her home during a botched nighttime raid in 2020. The consent decree calls for changes to the department’s policies around use of force, search warrants, and misconduct investigations and discipline, among other things. [The Washington Post] 

Police claim that Luigi Mangione shot and killed United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson with a partially 3D-printed ghost gun. Members of the online community devoted to 3D-printed firearms identified the alleged murder weapon as a relatively old design, showing how far 3D-printed guns have come. Meanwhile, others on the internet have celebrated the suspected shooter as a folk hero. The glorification of a public killing could be explained by a theory called “social banditry.” [USA TODAY/Wired/Politico]

In Tennessee, approval of the Republican-controlled statehouse and top GOP politicians has risen in recent months, according to a new poll. But residents’ support for gun reform and other policies many state GOP lawmakers oppose has risen, too, and support for those measures outweighs that of the lawmakers. [WPLN] 

Republican Florida lawmakers have filed two bills meant to roll back gun safety measures instituted after the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. The legislation targets the state’s red flag law and a law that raised the minimum age to buy a rifle from 18 to 21. The bills appear unlikely to pass the state Senate. [Associated Press] 

There were 10 homicides in Austin, Texas, last month, at least seven of which involved guns. Among the suspects arrested for the killings, four had prior convictions and parole conditions that bar them from possessing guns. Defense attorneys in the city say there isn’t a unified system to make sure the rules are being followed — but Austin’s Office of Violence Prevention is taking steps to better ensure that suspects and people with felony convictions, particularly those related to domestic violence charges, don’t have guns. [KXAN] 

Via The Weekly Briefing newsletter: Minnesota and New Jersey are suing Glock, one of America’s most popular brands of handguns, claiming that the company failed to change its 9 mm semiautomatic pistols to make them more difficult to modify with switches, devices that slot into Glock handguns and enable them to fire like fully automatic machine guns. Minnesota’s suit cites Trace reporting, including a September story in which experts said Glock has several possible, if costly, solutions to the issue. [The New York Times]

Data Point

At least 277 — the number of people since 2000 who have been killed in gun accidents in which the shooter believed the weapon was unloaded because the magazine had been dislodged or removed. That number is likely an undercount. [NBC]

Non Sequitur

The Passion of the Mormon Feminist

“For 50 years, Exponent II has made the LDS Church squirm. It has no plans to stop.” [High Country News] 

Sunny Sone
Sunny is in charge of our newsletters, leading the growth of existing products and dreaming up new ones. They previously worked as a copy editor at The Intercept and as digital editor for the Texas Observer, and co-published a web-only magazine under the Brick House media cooperative. Sunny has covered topics ranging from the Texas funeral industry to the life of visionary composer Pauline Oliveros. They hold a degree in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin.