In remarks following a mass shooting at the Chiefs Super Bowl parade, Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas made a pointed assertion about how the tragedy was capable of happen even with greater than 800 cops stationed at the parade to safe the space.
“That’s what happens with guns,” he stated plainly.
At least one individual was killed in the violence and 21 folks — together with 11 kids — have been injured. As of Thursday, police had detained three folks and confiscated a number of firearms in reference to the shooting, which they attributed to an interpersonal dispute.
“Parades, rallies, schools, movies, it seems like almost nothing is safe,” Lucas added.
According to studies, the violence started as an argument and escalated. It was not a single-shooter focused assault like the form that usually receives extra media consideration. That makes it extra consistent with the overwhelming majority of shooting incidents in the US.
Lucas’s statements spotlight the indisputable fact that the proliferation of guns and weak gun management insurance policies have fueled the United States’s mass shooting disaster, together with the newest occasion of violence in Kansas City. They additionally explicitly acknowledge the fallacy of the “good guy with a gun” argument: the concept that including armed safety — quite than limiting entry to guns — can maintain folks secure.
The US has issues with gun violence as a result of it has a lot of guns
The US is exclusive amongst industrialized nations relating to the frequency of deadly gun violence.
According to CNN, which referenced the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), a University of Washington international well being analysis group, the proportion of homicides brought on by gun violence in the US was 18 occasions that of the common of different developed nations in 2019.
Similarly, the variety of firearms folks personal in the US far surpasses that of another developed nation. The US has about 120 firearms per 100 residents, a lot larger than Yemen, the subsequent closest nation, which has about 53 firearms per 100 residents, in line with a 2018 research by the Swiss-based gun analysis undertaking the Small Arms Survey.
As Vox has defined, a number of research have straight linked the nation’s variety of firearms with the frequency of gun violence. “One 2013 Boston University-led study, for instance, found that for each percentage point increase in gun ownership at the household level, the state firearm homicide rate increased by 0.9 percent,” my colleagues Nicole Narea, Ian Millhiser, and I wrote. “And states with weaker gun laws have higher rates of gun-related homicides and suicides, according to a study by the gun control advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety.”
The impression of gun violence has already been evident this 12 months. In the first month and a half of 2024, 1,639 Americans have been killed by firearms and 2,223 have been injured, in line with information collected by the Gun Violence Archive, a not-for-profit group that tracks US shootings.
In response to shootings, gun advocates typically argue that extra guns are the reply, that having a so-called “good guy with a gun” helps as they’ll cease a “bad guy with a gun.” That argument was superior by gun advocates following a latest church shooting in Houston, during which off-duty officers shot and killed the suspected shooter.
And it’s a fantasy straight peddled by the gun foyer: “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” former National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre beforehand stated. As Lucas famous, nonetheless, regardless of the sturdy presence of armed safety and regulation enforcement at the Chiefs parade, the shooting nonetheless occurred and resulted in accidents and a fatality.
“We had over 800 officers there, staffed, situated all around Union Station today. We had security in any number of places, eyes on top of buildings and beyond — and there still is a risk to people,” Lucas stated. That’s to not say regulation enforcement and civilians didn’t assist forestall the scenario from being worse: Bystanders assisted in subduing one suspect, per studies, and police arrested not less than one particular person as properly.
Research has proven that rising the presence of “good guys with guns” shouldn’t be a totally efficient approach to cut back gun violence. This is as a result of police typically aren’t capable of reply in time and the assault has already occurred once they’re capable of react. Per a Texas State University research, police have been capable of cease lower than a third of lively assaults — together with shootings — between 2000 and 2022.
Lucas’s statements and the circumstances in Kansas City finally underscore a grim reality: A central drawback in these shootings is the guns themselves.