‘Stop the slaughter’: KC mayor says Westport shooting shows need for gun law reform
Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said a shooting Sunday night in Westport was another example of the need for gun law reforms in Missouri.
Lucas’ comments came hours after a shooting near 42nd Street and Broadway Boulevard involving Kansas City police officers left one person dead and five injured. Lucas tweeted that gun violence occurred even with officers and security guards present.
“The easy access to guns and the total lack of safeguards in our state to keep people from carrying them almost anywhere continues to put our people at risk each day,” he wrote.
Lucas and Kansas City Police Department interim Chief Joe Mabin were in Washington, D.C. Monday ahead of a celebration for a bi-partisan gun control bill passed last month and signed into law by President Joe Biden. Lucas said he hopes to talk with Biden and police chiefs and mayors from across the country to find more solutions to gun violence.
“I will keep pushing until it becomes clear to our Missouri leaders that more guns on our streets, with higher capacities, with no training requirements, no permits, and no way for officers to get guns off our streets,” Lucas tweeted, “are destroying any sense of safety we once had.”
Lucas spoke to The Star ahead of his visit to the nation’s capital and said the bipartisan effort from the White House doesn’t go far enough but shows that common sense gun violence solutions are possible and open the door for future actions.
“You’re basically taking a risk if you go into an entertainment district nowadays, not just in Kansas City, but anywhere in America,” Lucas told The Star. “I think this is where we can make a difference.
“I’m not taking lawful firearms from anybody. That’s not my issue. I ain’t going out (of the) state of Missouri to do that,” Lucas said. “What I am doing is saying, you know what, ‘maybe we can stop the slaughter on the streets at Kansas City.”’
Star reporter Cortlynn Stark contributed to this report.
This story was originally published July 11, 2022 at 8:51 AM.
