COLUMBIA - South Carolina again leads the nation in the rate of women killed by men, an annual study released Thursday said.

In 2001, 64 women were murdered by men in the Palmetto State - a rate of 3.15 per 100,000 residents, said the Violence Policy Center, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit research organization that advocates gun control.

Of those, 61 knew their assailants - 41 were wives, ex-wives or girlfriends of the offenders, the study found.

The numbers put South Carolina's homicide rate for women at more than twice the national average. It also was the state's highest rate in the six years the center has been putting out its "When Men Murder Women" report based on FBI homicide statistics.

Homicide rates for the nation's top five states were all higher than last year. This year, Alabama ranked second, followed by Nevada, Louisiana and Tennessee. South Carolina has been in the top five each year of the study.

Nancy Barton, director of Sistercare, which has shelters in the Midlands for battered women, said, "We need state leadership on this issue. It needs to be this year, and we need to get going on it."

Will Folks, spokesman for Gov. Mark Sanford, noted Thursday that Sanford had signed legislation this year making aggravated criminal domestic violence a felony and mandating counseling or sentences for repeat offenders.

Victims advocates want more. Bourus said state law should prohibit convicted batterers from owning guns.

Twenty-six S.C. women were killed with guns in 2001, the study said.

The violence cuts across socioeconomic levels, according to the center. The victims' average age was 36; six were younger than 18. An almost equal number were black or white, the report said.

State Attorney General Henry McMaster said Thursday that the state's ranking is "very sad and shameful. It emphasizes the need for serious prosecution for [domestic violence] cases from the beginning."

The attorney general announced a pilot program in July to have private lawyers volunteer to prosecute domestic violence cases in magistrate and municipal courts. McMaster also is continuing the policy of his predecessor, Charlie Condon, who ordered prosecutors in 2001 to stop dropping serious domestic violence cases solely because victims do not want to prosecute. Condon's order came four days after The (Columbia) State newspaper reported in May 2001 that prosecutors and judges were dropping more than half of the most serious charges.

Laura Hudson, spokeswoman for the S.C. Victim Assistance Network in Columbia, said she will push lawmakers to change a loophole that allows first-time offenders to have their records expunged after three years.

"There are all kinds of ways to get around it, and it's all for the benefit of the offenders," she said.