It’s time for the NFL to take a stand against gun violence after a week when this year’s Super Bowl was bookended by two shootings. The second shooting happened on Wednesday at the end of the Chiefs Super Bowl parade in Kansas City. Some schools had closed so that students could attend the victory celebration, and nine kids were shot among the 21 injured. Another person was killed. Many of the details are still coming to light but this was another horrific American holiday.
It was Valentine’s Day. The sixth anniversary of the Parkland shooting.
The first shooting, in Houston, was when a woman with an AR-15-style rifle walked into a Joel Osteen church. Security recognized the threat, killed her and shot her 7-year-old son in the head. As awful as this event was, it was jarring that the tone of the press conference focused on how successful the response had been, despite a child fighting for his life in a hospital. On CNN, Police Chief Troy Finner acknowledged that they expedited the press conference to get it in before the start of the Super Bowl.
This is American exceptionalism, the pageant of football and the hideous slaughter of mass shootings.
And now it comes to the NFL, where metal detectors and gun bans welcome every fan who attends a game. The Super Bowl itself is one of the highest-level security events in the country each year, up there with a presidential appearance. The NFL can’t risk the chance that someone with a weapon sets the playing field in their sites, so it works to keep them out.
The NFL could actually do something more meaningful in the wake of the endless bloodshed. There is no force in our country that can mobilize change like the NFL. There are two reasons the league needs to make this an issue it cares about. The first is that gun violence is disproportionately affecting kids — nine were sent to Mercy’s Children’s Hospital with gunshot wounds. Local kids who went to see the Chiefs celebrate their Super Bowl win have now joined the seemingly ever-growing army of children traumatized by our country’s plague of gun violence.
“I’m angry at what happened today. The people who came to this celebration sound expect a safe environment,” Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves said.
Secondly, the NFL can tightly control events like the Super Bowl, but there are plenty of large open-air get-togethers around NFL games, like tailgates and parties, and with this country becomes so awash in guns and these shootings so normalized, it could have an impact on how people gather around games. It didn’t seem so farfetched when watching parents interviewed at the parade describe their children watching another spectator get shot right in front of them.
“There is no longer any way to guarantee having no gun violence at a major public event in this country,” said former FBI assistant director for counterintelligence Frank Figliuzzi during Stephanie Ruhle’s MSNBC show on Wednesday night.
Missouri allows permitless carry and has generally weak gun laws, while having one of the highest gun violence rates in the country.
The Kansas City Chiefs released this tepid statement: “We are truly saddened by the senseless act of violence that occurred outside of Union Station at the conclusion of today’s parade and rally. Our hearts go out to the victims, their families, and all of Kansas City.”
Patrick Mahomes offered “Praying for Kansas City,” via social media. There were a lot of comments from those who felt prayers have not been nearly enough to save lives since the repeal of the assault weapons ban, but I prefer to give the quarterback the benefit of the doubt having been part of the unimaginable scene. Players who had just spent a few understandably decadent or family-centric days in the wake of a huge win only to have it turn into another scene of America gun slaughter, might not have the perfect statement at hand.
But it would make sense for the Chiefs to see if their deliberate, collective voice as a team and a league might be more effective.
Every year, the WNBA players and league work together on one issue. This year it was maternal mortality, which disproportionately affects Black women. In a majority non-white league, that’s a place where efforts to make a difference can make a difference in communities where players were raised. It makes sense for a league to address an issue close to them.
There were 800 police officers on the parade scene in Kansas City, and none of them were able to stop more than a dozen people getting shot. Even in Houston, where the security guards who shot the intended mass shooter to death before she could kill anyone, they also put a bullet in a 7-year-old’s brain according to the boy’s grandmother.
The league has brought awareness and real movement on issues when it mobilized, such as domestic violence. After a spate of high-profile incidents, advocates against domestic violence told me they’d never experienced the spotlight to the issue that the NFL brought. There was suddenly money to create training and help victims.
The league is a force, and if it put its weight into making other events as safe as it works to make stadiums and Super Bowls safe, then those fighting to make their towns, schools, movie theaters, churches, supermarkets, concerts and homes safer might have a fighting chance.
The NFL can harness a power that goes beyond being “saddened.” Many of us feel helpless knowing how ineffective lawmakers have been on this issue, but we can’t be shocked. This will happen again, and to other children, and each time it does, it makes our communities smaller and poorer. Our kids deserve better than active shooter drills and bloodstained parade routes. And they also deserve something more than prayers as a solution.
