Congress unlikely to act after Kansas City Chiefs rally shooting. ‘We have to decide’
Every time the U.S. House of Representatives has prayed for the victims of gun violence over the past two years, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver has walked off the floor.
It is a one man protest. The Kansas City Democrat has grown tired of Congress saying a prayer for victims of gun violence – in Uvalde, in Buffalo, in Parkland, in Sandy Hook – while doing little to stop it.
But it was Cleaver’s turn Wednesday.
After one person was killed and more than 20 others were shot after the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl victory parade, in his congressional district, Cleaver joined Reps. Sharice Davids, Mark Alford, and Ann Wagner in the front of the chamber as Davids asked for a moment of silence.
Urged to speak, Cleaver, a retired pastor, said a great celebration was ruined by tragedy. One that has befallen the country over and over again – a shooter ruining lives. Then he paused and said a quiet “amen.”
“I didn’t ask people to pray,” Cleaver said after leaving the House chamber. “I’m through with that.”
While Cleaver is urging Congress to act, he may have to keep waiting. For decades, Congress has been unable to find agreement on major gun policy, as Republicans have remained steadfast in their opposition to restrictions on gun rights.
The most recent substantial attempt at compromise came in 2022. A group of Republicans joined Democrats to pass a law that made it more difficult for people who were found guilty of domestic violence to purchase guns, expanded background checks for people between 18 and 21 seeking to purchase a gun and provided money for mental health programs.
It was opposed by all of the Republicans from Kansas and Missouri except former Sen. Roy Blunt.
President Joe Biden has used his bully pulpit to urge Congress to do more about gun violence. The White House has pushed for a ban on assault weapons, background checks for all gun sales and eliminating liability protections for gun manufacturers.
In the absence of action by Congress, the Biden administration has created an Office of Gun Violence Prevention, headed by Vice President Kamala Harris. But executive action is limited beyond rulemaking by the agencies responsible for overseeing existing gun regulations.
It has had little success. In a statement issued Wednesday night, Biden pleaded for Congress to take action on banning assault weapons, strengthen background checks and ban implements that help increase the number of bullets someone can fire without having to reload.
“The epidemic of gun violence is ripping apart families and communities every day,” Biden said. “Some make the news. Much of it doesn’t. But all of it is unacceptable. We have to decide who we are as a country.”
But his pleas have done little to persuade conservatives, who point to the right to own a gun as a fundamental freedom in the U.S. Constitution. Shortly after the shooting, Rep. Mark Alford, a Missouri Republican who spent years as a news anchor in Kansas City, said he didn’t have any solutions, but said the shooting shouldn’t be blamed on guns.
“You can’t lay the blame at the feet of the gun,” Alford said. “It’s at the feet of the people who did this. This is a condition of the human heart and we have to find out how to change hearts.”
The sentiment is widely shared by his Republican colleagues, some of whom have gone as far as to wear AR-15 pins on the outside of their jackets when walking around the Capitol.
The first bill Rep. Eric Burlison, a Missouri Republican, filed upon entering Congress last year was an attempt to repeal a 1934 law that requires people to register shotguns and rifles longer than 18 inches. As a Missouri state senator, Burlison spearheaded a state law seeking to invalidate some federal gun laws.
Republicans instead often talk of enhancing security measures, particularly after school shootings. After 19 elementary school students and two teachers were killed in a shooting in Uvalde, Texas, Republicans proposed a bill that would give money to schools to increase their physical security measures.
But such plans would do little at an event like a Super Bowl parade, where millions of people gather.
“You had the FBI, Kansas City Missouri police, private security and maybe the Sheriff’s deputies,” Cleaver said. “We had people on rooftops. We had everything that you can have. But if you got a million something people and a third of weapons, there’s nothing you can do. Praying won’t stop that.”
Alford, too, said there was little law enforcement could have done to prevent the shooting and praised officers for their response on Wednesday.
“When you have a million people in downtown and really no way to make sure that no guns get into that area,” Alford said. “It’s a bad situation.”
Police said on Thursday that the shooting was a result of a dispute. Two juveniles and an adult have been detained.
Asked whether the Biden administration is looking at any tangible steps to help keep guns out of the hands of teenagers, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre laid the responsibility at the feet of Congress.
“We have to get Congress to act,” Jean-Pierre said. “We have to get Congress to make sure that we’re continuing to do the work they started.”
Still, Cleaver does not expect Congress to take action to prevent something like it from happening again.
“It was supposed to be one of the happiest days in decades. And then people are running for their lives,” Cleaver said. “I know that if the murder of children didn’t inspire Congress to act, then the murder of football fans won’t get a piece of consideration.
So it goes on and on and on. I don’t know what to do.”
