A new billboard has gone up in Mississippi, warning would-be criminals crossing the state line from Tennessee that firing squads are legal there.
The billboard is on I-55 southbound, where drivers enter Mississippi from Memphis, and was put up by DeSoto County District Attorney Matthew Barton.
Mississippi just put up a billboard on the Tennessee state line that reads “WELCOME TO MISSISSIPPI. WHERE THE FIRING SQUAD IS LEGAL. THINK TWICE.” pic.twitter.com/5yTkfC5Rvp
— Wild Posts (@wildpostss) May 9, 2026
The billboard is part of Barton’s aggressive public campaign to deter violent crime.
It directly references Mississippi’s 2017 law that authorizes execution by firing squad as a legal method of carrying out the death penalty when lethal injection drugs are unavailable.
Mississippi is one of only a handful of states that still permits this method, alongside electrocution and, more recently, nitrogen hypoxia.
District Attorney Barton is not mincing words in his reasoning for putting up the billboard.
“This campaign has one purpose: deterrence,” Barton told the Desoto Times. “We are going to be loud and clear that DeSoto County does not coddle violent criminals. If you bring violence across our state line, we are going to prosecute you aggressively and hold you accountable.”
“People on death row are the losers of life’s lottery,” Barton said. “If violent criminals are looking for a state that coddles crime, Mississippi is not it. They better think twice before they act here.”
Baron explained that “Safety is achieved through enforcement.”
“Safe communities do not happen by accident. They happen because law enforcement officers, prosecutors, judges, and citizens refuse to surrender their communities to violent criminals.”
This is not Barton’s first tough-on-crime billboard.
Barton previously erected signs reading “TURN BACK NOW” in the same area to warn criminals away from DeSoto County, which has seen spillover from Memphis’s urban crime.
