JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) – The shooting that injured more than 20 people and killed one during the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl victory parade occurred in a state with few gun regulations and historic tensions over the way big cities handle crime .
The shooting, which Kansas City police said appeared to be the result of a dispute between several people, happened despite the presence of more than 800 police officers.
Notably, dozens of policymakers from Missouri and neighboring Kansas were caught up in the chaos as large numbers of fans scattered to the sound of gunfire. Lawmakers and elected officials who witnessed the devastation firsthand included Republican Governor of Missouri Mike Parson and Democratic Governor of Kansas Laura Kelly, whose security guard heard the shots after getting into her car to leave, a spokesperson said.
Democratic Missouri state Rep. Maggie Nurrenbern of Kansas City said she was in the city’s historic Union Station when the shooting began. She said she and her sister ran and used their bodies to hide and protect fleeing children.
“Iâ€
m hurt. I am angry,” Nurrenbern wrote in a message on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter. “And I am more determined than ever to ensure that children can grow up in a Missouri free from gun violence.”
But it is unclear what action Missouri’s Republican-led Legislature will take in response to the shooting.
“It’s hard to police a free nation,” Republican Rep. Lane Roberts said Thursday. “So when we try to do things that enhance the efforts of our police departments without infringing on other people’s rights, it can be a very difficult balance.”
Here’s a look at Missouri’s gun policies and how elected officials plan to tackle crime:
Missouri has some of the most expansive gun rights of any state due to a series of measures passed by the Republican-led Legislature in recent decades.
Before the Republican Party gained full control of the legislature in the 2002 elections, concealed weapons were banned and handguns could only be purchased after a background check and permission from local sheriffs. Republican lawmakers repealed those restrictions within their first decade in power, and gun stores saw sales increase.
Missouri currently has no age restrictions on gun use and ownership, although federal law largely prohibits minors from carrying handguns.
Voters strengthened gun rights in 2014 by approving a constitutional amendment placed on the ballot by lawmakers, making the right to bear arms “inalienable” and subjecting any restrictions “to strict scrutiny.”
Two years later, the Republican supermajority in the Missouri Legislature overrode a veto from then-Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat, allows most adults to carry concealed weapons without needing a permit. The legislation also created a stand-your-ground right, expanding the legal use of guns for self-defense.
A 2021 Missouri law put further pressure on gun rights, banning local police from enforcing federal gun restrictions. The measure was rejected by a federal judge last year and remains on hold while an appeal is filed.
Current Republican legislative leaders have shown little interest in laws that would restrict the use and ownership of firearms in Missouri.
Roberts — a former southwestern Missouri police chief who later joined the Legislature — last year proposed banning children from openly carrying guns in public without parental supervision in an effort to combat rising crime in St. Louis . The bill was defeated by a vote of 104 to 39. Only one Republican voted in favor.
Republican House Speaker Dean Plocher abruptly left a news conference Thursday after being asked by reporters for details about the GOP strategy for tackling crime and when questioned about last year’s vote on children carrying firearms .
A rare exception to Republicans’ fierce opposition to gun regulations is an effort to address festive gunfire, which is a problem in Kansas City.
The Missouri Legislature last year passed a bill to make discharging a firearm within city limits a misdemeanor for the first offense, with exceptions. The bill is named after 11-year-old Blair Shanahan Lane, who was dancing with a sparkler outside her suburban Kansas City home on July 4, 2011, and was hit in the neck by a stray bullet.
Blair’s law was part of a sweeping crime bill that was later vetoed by Parson for unrelated reasons. The Missouri House passed similar legislation just two days before the Chiefs’ parade.
Other Republican-backed bills moving forward in the House of Representatives would exempt guns and ammunition from sales taxes and allow people with concealed carry permits to carry guns on public transportation. House Majority Leader Jonathan Patterson said earlier this week that “it is common sense to allow lawful concealed carry permit holders to protect themselves” on buses and trains.
Much of the Kansas City metropolitan area is in Kansas, and a 43-year-old prominent DJ who was killed Wednesday lived on the Kansas side.
The most visible and active gun safety movement in Kansas is in the Kansas City area. But Kansas’s law is as pro-gun as Missouri’s, and Kansas added an amendment to strengthen gun rights in the Constitution four years before Missouri did — with 88% of the vote.
Now Republican Attorney General Kris Kobach and a majority of Republican lawmakers are pushing for a new amendment to make these protections even stronger.
“Having armed citizens provides a greater degree of protection in any situation,” Kobach told reporters on Thursday. “We need good citizens to be armed and help out, because there simply aren’t enough law enforcement officers to protect everyone, everywhere, all the time.”
At a hearing last month before a House committee, critics predicted the change would prevent the state from banning even convicted felons or domestic abusers from owning guns.
“That’s the really scary part of it,” said Rep. Jo Ella Hoye, a Kansas City Democrat who was at the parade with her 11-year-old son. “We could lose all the current gun laws we have.”
The number of homicides in Kansas City rose to a record level last year, to 182. Kansas City police data shows that there were 12 more homicides in 2023 than in 2022 and three more than the previous record of 179 in 2020. The police data do not include officer-involved homicides.
Elected officials in Kansas City are limited in what they can do.
Kansas City, with a population of about 508,000, about 28% of whom are black, is the only city in Missouri without local control over its police department. It is believed to be the largest city in the US in this situation, the mayor’s office said.
Leaders in the largely Democratic city will not hire a police chief or determine how the department spends its tax dollars. A law from the 1930s gives that power to a five-member board that is largely appointed by the governor of Missouri, who has been a Republican since 2017.
Missouri law also prohibits cities from enacting stricter gun regulations than state law, although Kansas City bans gunfire in the city.
In recent years, mayors of both Kansas City and St. Louis have fought for control over their cities’ public safety policies, with mostly Republican lawmakers arguing that the cities’ high crime rates mean local leaders are failing. Republican lawmakers have also repeatedly rejected requests to make urban areas adopt stricter gun policies compared to the rest of the state.
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Associated Press writer John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, contributed to this report.
