Referring to the shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl Rally, “This appeared to be a dispute between several people that ended in gunfire,” said Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves. Two juveniles are the main suspects who were detained. The attack was not terrorism or extremist related. While investigations are continuing, putting these points together implies that there is a significant likelihood that the shooting was gang-related. One should also note that it was illegal for these two juveniles to be possessing their guns.
Missouri’s Constitutional Carry Law went into effect in 2017. From 2016 to 2021, the homicide rate in Missouri rose by 24.0%, while the national rate rose by 30.9%. Public Health and gun control advocates like to look at the firearm homicide rate, and in Missouri, between 2016 and 2021, it rose by 29.5%, and the national rate rose by 41.7%.
UPDATE: ABC News floats the claim: “After the permit law was repealed, there was an estimated 47.3% increase in firearm homicide, according to research from the American Journal of Public Health.”
This claim about Missouri’s 2007 repeal of its permit-to-purchase law has been repeated in numerous studies by public health researchers, but it is a bogus claim we have dealt with before. As we note, “The question is why the Missouri murder rate was increasing relative to the rest of the US at a slower rate after the change in the law than it did prior to it.“
