Op-Ed: Why the Mix of Confetti and Bullets is not a Surprise in America
As the Kansas City Chiefs parade and research clearly show, guns are killing us.
By Devin Hughes and Caitlin Clarkson Pereira
The Super Bowl Parade is a place where fans go to witness their favorite NFL team celebrate a win of arguably the most coveted trophy in sports. The sights and sounds of these parades are filled with cheers and flying confetti. Yet last week, as a million people gathered in Kansas City to celebrate the Chief’s Super Bowl victory, bullets were flying too.
Valentine's Day is historically a bloody day when it comes to gun violence. Wednesday was the sixth anniversary of the Parkland shooting, along with the 16th anniversary of the Northern Illinois Shooting, the 31st anniversary of a major mass shooting in the Bronx, and the 95th anniversary of the infamous St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.
As Jennifer Mascia reported, no other day in the year has seen as many major mass shootings. So it’s not shocking that news coverage commemorating the Parkland shooting was interrupted by news of yet another mass shooting.Â
Once again, the myth that more guns will cause less violence or deter violent acts from occurring was proven to be a lie. There were 800 armed police standing guard at the parade. Missouri has no real restrictions on the concealed carry of firearms, so likely hundreds in the crowd were armed. Yet none of that stopped the bloodshed.
Wednesday’s tragic shooting is sadly not surprising in a country that witnessed 656 mass shootings last year. The shooting at the Chiefs’ Super Bowl parade marks the 48th mass shooting already this year. Such wanton gun violence is even less surprising in Missouri.
Missouri is an exemplar of bad gun policy run amok, beholden to the myth that guns make us safer. Giffords currently ranks the state as having the third weakest gun laws in the country while having the sixth highest gun death rate. In 2007, Missouri repealed its permit to purchase law, a change resulting in a 17-27% increase in gun homicides. A decade later, Missouri further weakened its laws by passing permitless carry, which saw its homicide rate increase another 15% in three years according to CDC data.
Further compounding the carnage, Missouri has preemption laws that bar cities and localities from passing their own gun safety measures, and declared itself a Second Amendment Sanctuary state in 2021, meaning state officials were not allowed to enforce federal gun laws. Thankfully this declaration was overturned by a court ruling in late 2023, but the intention of the state lawmakers is tangibly relevant.
In addition to what recent data shows us, Missouri’s case study of bad policy aligns with what academic research shows. Permit to purchase is consistently found to be one of the most effective policies at saving lives from gun violence. A majority of modern academic studies since 2005 that focus on the impact of weakening concealed carry laws find that such laws increase violent crime.
According to a study my organization, GVPedia, conducted, states that pass permitless carry laws on average see a 22% increase in gun homicides for the three years after the law’s passage — more than doubling the 10% increase for the country overall in the same time period.Â
Looking more broadly at the research on gun violence further reinforces that guns do not make us safer. From 1968 to 2019, GVPedia’s gun study database shows 57% of the academic literature on gun laws and 76% of the literature on gun availability found that stronger gun laws decrease violence and more guns mean more violence — compared with 9% and 1% respectively that found the opposite. While GVPedia is still collecting studies from 2020 and after, the trend in academic research shows no sign of abating.Â
The list of places where we feel safe in America is constantly shrinking. Schools, houses of worship, movie theaters, malls, grocery stores, and parades used to be places of routine or celebration, but are now targets for gun violence. We have let this list expand for far too long.
As Missouri’s latest mass tragedy and research clearly show, guns are killing us. It is time to pass comprehensive legislation to save lives and renounce the gun lobby’s myths that ensure the parade of tragedies will continue unabated.
Devin Hughes is Founder and President of GVPedia; Caitlin Clarkson Pereira is Executive Director.
Image by Roy Harryman from Pixabay.
By viewing the Chiefs victory parade tragedy as a failure to pass strong, common sense gun laws that are grounded in the history of American mass shootings and gun violence -- specifically, by citing Missouri's preemption laws, conceal carry protections and its repeal of gun permit laws, you demonstrate the predictable outcome of the mass shooting with powerful cogency.