Friend,

Many of us were really looking forward to Wednesday. A beautiful day. Maybe you were at the Super Bowl parade, or watching online, or following along as one player after another talked about how much they loved Kansas City and would find a way to be back next year.

Eleven kids at Children's Mercy, 9 with gunshot wounds. A mom shot and killed. At least 23 victims, several critical. Even with hundreds of police responding immediately, even with medical staff present, even with detailed plans and federal agents and everything else, this was the result.

Anyone who goes through training learns quickly that a bad guy with a gun can hurt a lot of people very quickly. You can have 800 good guys with a gun respond immediately - just like Kansas City had - and still have two dozen gunshot wounds.

So now, six years to the day of the Parkland shooting, we have the Chiefs Super Bowl Parade shooting.

How many more times does this have to happen?

How many more children have to die?

How many more beautiful days and celebrations and places we always expect to be safe have to be drained of all their joy and light because our leaders won't do anything?

We don't know all of the details from Kansas City yet, but we know that two of the detained suspects are kids who had guns, and the indications are this was some kind of personal dispute. There is so much we can do to prevent violence just like this with real, proven, coordinated efforts to deter crime and make sure fewer people find themselves pointing guns at each other.

This doesn't have to happen. But it does, over and over again.

Wednesday reminded me of another day years ago on the other side of the state. August 12, 2019, was another beautiful day. One of my students was getting ready for the first day of first grade when an argument broke out down the alley from his backyard. The argument turned into a gunfight, and a bullet hit this little excited boy. He died within minutes surrounded by his family.

The news coverage will eventually disappear, but the effects of these events won't. Everyone there will be impacted forever, from those who lost loved ones, to the children who witnessed it all, to the first responders who moved in so quickly.

Kansas City will rally around the families who have been broken. A town with folks willing to run to the danger, with people who risked their own lives to save others, that has had to rally far too often when gun violence takes someone's life.

We deserve so much better.

Children's Mercy has put up a guide page with resources as well as an emergency fund. You can find it here.

If you have information about the shooting, Kansas City Police have set up a tip line at 816-413-3477.

If there is anything we can do for you, please let us know.