Following the tragic shooting at Wednesday’s Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl parade, Mayor Quinton Lucas wondered how the city can remain “fully” safe if people can just walk around with guns.

Speaking with NPR’s Juana Summers on “All Things Considered” Thursday, the Democrat mayor discussed what kind of precautions can be taken to avoid future incidents like the one that unfolded the day before. Shots rang out at the parade and rally at Union Station near downtown Kansas City celebrating the Chiefs’ Super Bowl victory. One woman was killed and over 20 people were injured – many of them children.

“Kansas City is a city that loves its celebrations. And I know that there is a big St. Patrick’s Day parade scheduled in your city for next month,” Summers said in the interview with Lucas.

“Are you at this point thinking differently about public celebrations in light of this, the types of precautions that might need to be taken? You pointed out more than 800 officers were on the streets, and yet this still happened,” she said.

[Relevant segment begins around 4:30 mark]

“This is probably the hardest part of all for any of us who go to parades with our children, or for loved ones or friends because I think we’re starting to realize a challenge to everything we can do to keep ourselves safe,” the mayor replied.

“We can have more officers, and we will. We can have cameras and everything possible. But it is hard to fully protect ourselves if we’re in a public space,” Lucas contended,

“If there is not a metal detector walking in, if there is not the sort of thing, frankly, that a parade just doesn’t allow, then how can we ever fully be safe in a city, a state and perhaps a country where we know that people are freely walking around with AR-15s, with modified handguns with switches, with any number of issues, or frankly, even just your old classic revolver,” he said.

Summers seemed to agree as the mayor concluded.

“If we know that one can act with impunity with that, then it’s hard to say we’ll ever be fully as safe as I think we’d like to idealize ourselves to be,” Lucas said.

During a press conference after the shooting, the mayor told reporters “that’s what happens with guns” after being asked about the 800 police officers who were on hand for the event.

Reporter to Mayor of Kansas City: “You had over 800 officers deployed to work this parade, and in a matter of moments, 22 people were shot.”

Quinton Lucas: “I mean, that’s what happens with guns.”

Who wants to tell him? pic.twitter.com/3YBO3UML4J

— 3sidedstory (@3sidedstory) February 14, 2024

“We had 800 officers out yesterday. We had snipers on roofs. We had cameras everywhere,” Lucas said in an interview on KMBC 9 on Thursday.

“We did everything we could to make this event as safe as possible. But so long as we have fools who will commit these types of acts, as long as we have their access to firearms at this level of capacity, that we may see incidents like this one,” the mayor added.

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Frieda Powers

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Originally from New York, Powers graduated from New York University and eventually made her way to sunny South Florida where she has been writing for the BizPacReview team since 2015.

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