In 1985, Jacquelyn Campbell, a nursing professor at Johns Hopkins, introduced the Danger Assessment, a survey for health care practitioners to screen patients for intimate partner violence. The assessment, which included questions about factors like whether an abusive partner had a gun or a job, was one of the first of its kind; at the time, the American public was just beginning to understand the scope of intimate partner violence, and retrospective studies showed the beginning of the increase in pregnancy-related homicides.
As The Trace’s Fairriona Magee reported in a feature story published last month, homicide is among the leading causes of death for pregnant and post-partum people, surpassing obstetric-related causes like sepsis or hemorrhaging. Guns are used in the majority of these killings, often at the hands of those closest to the victims. At the center of this crisis are Black women and young women, who are disproportionately likely to be victims. But there are ways to prevent these deaths — like screening for risk, as with Campbell’s Danger Assessment, during pregnancy-related doctors visits.
In a new piece, Magee speaks with Campbell and other experts about existing and potential efforts to address the maternal homicide crisis, looking at shifts within the health care system and more upstream issues like addressing financial inequity.
From The Trace
Can a Health Care Approach Abate the Maternal Homicide Crisis?: Experts and physicians in maternal health explain the evolving crisis behind pregnancy-related homicides, and why it’s preventable.
When Pregnancy Makes You a Target: Pregnant people are more likely to die by homicide than any obstetric-related cause — particularly if they are young or Black. These three women are seeking justice for their daughters.
What More Can I Do?: Throughout 2024, I felt good about the steady decline of shootings in my home city of Philadelphia. That changed exactly 12 days before Christmas, when one of the most dangerous weekends of the year reminded me that gun violence remains an epidemic.
They Couldn’t Find Help When They Survived a Shooting. They Want Things to Improve for the Next Generation: Children and young adults often feel overlooked after losing a loved one to gun violence. Survivors want schools to step up, and the city to hire youth-focused advocates.
What to Know Today
On July 3, 2023, Karina González and her 15-year-old daughter were fatally shot in their Chicago home, allegedly by González’s husband. Despite an order of protection that González had submitted less than two weeks earlier, her husband’s firearm was never seized. In one of the final acts of their legislative session, Illinois lawmakers passed a bill in her name that clarifies the process for removing firearms after courts grant an order of protection, and requires law enforcement to promptly remove the alleged abuser’s firearms. [Chicago Sun-Times/The Trace]
Baltimore and Detroit experienced historic decreases in shootings and homicides last year. In Baltimore, nonfatal shootings and homicides reached their lowest levels since 2015; in Detroit, homicide fell to the lowest rate in 50 years, and nonfatal shootings declined 25 percent compared to 2023. Officials in both cities partially credited increased community-based violence intervention efforts for the drop. [The Baltimore Banner/Detroit Free Press]
Texas’s suicide rate has grown, but the capacity of its five 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline call centers have not. The federally mandated, state-run hotline faces a $7 million funding deficit, a workforce shortage, and the looming expiration of federally allocated dollars. Amid the struggle, thousands of Texans reaching out to 988 are abandoning the crisis line mid-call. [The Texas Tribune]
Outgoing ATF Director Steven Dettelbach warned that further cutting the agency’s funding — or getting rid of it altogether, as some Republicans have advocated — could damage law enforcement’s ability to address a number of gun issues, including tracing firearms to crimes, helping local police identify shooters. Congressional Republicans have already proposed cutting $188 million from the ATF this year. [CBS]
Financier Omeed Malik, a donor to President-elect Donald Trump, will merge his blank-check company with the online firearms retailer GrabAGun. Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., is a newly appointed adviser to GrabAGun and will become a shareholder for the conservative-leaning company after it closes a deal with another corporation in the summer. [Reuters]
The Supreme Court’s 2022 Bruen decision set off a wave of legal challenges to gun restrictions across the country, including to the federal statute that bars people with felony convictions from having guns. At least 30 challenges to that law have succeeded in federal court, and lower courts have been split on whether it’s constitutional under Bruen. On Friday, the Supreme Court is scheduled to consider whether it will take up a case that could resolve the question. [The New York Times]
Senior editor Sunny Sone contributed to this section.
Data Point
18,500 — the number of calls to Texas’s 988 system that were abandoned between January and August 2024. [The Texas Tribune]
Non Sequitur
Punks Distribute Toys to Children in Need for Three Kings Day in Mexico City
“As a teenage punk 35 years ago, José Luis Escobar Hoyos wanted to show his mother that his lifestyle wasn’t just about dressing in chains and spikes and listening to loud, accelerated music. So he started a project called Kings Punks, where he collected and distributed toys for children living on the street. … ‘The bases of punk are mutual support and solidarity,’ the 50-year-old said Sunday night as the gift drive was in full swing.” [Associated Press]
