- [Announcer] "Flatland" is brought to you in part through the generous support of AARP, the Health Forward Foundation, and RSM.

- Hi, I'm D. Rashaan Gilmore.

Welcome to "Flatland".

As you know, every month, we dig into one issue that's raising questions, causing tensions, or has gone curiously unexplored in our area.

And for this episode, we'll be talking about gun ownership and what it means for the safety of all of our communities.

(steady electronic music) America has a problem.

More specifically, a gun problem, and it doesn't matter where you sit on the spectrum between gun rights and calls for increased restrictions on gun access.

We can all agree on one thing, something is wrong and change is necessary.

And we can all also probably agree that in our polarized society, reaching a point of consensus on just what those changes should be seems more unlikely now than ever.

So in today's broadcast, we will indeed dive deeper into the issue with voices from various points of view.

Some may surprise you, others may frustrate you.

What we hope is that you will leave this conversation better informed, personally empowered, and with a fresh perspective on how we make Kansas City a better and indeed safer place to call home.

So tonight, we start with an excerpt from the gripping new documentary by Michael Price that examines "The Gun Conundrum".

- [Narrator] Most prison inmates who'd been convicted of using a gun in their crime had either bought it off the street or obtained it from a friend or relative.

Jamel is no longer involved in crime, but when he was, he'd break into houses and vehicles, and sometimes he'd find guns.

- Just pistols, for real.

It just was out like they'd be under the seat or something.

- [Narrator] Jamel used a gun he found in an armed robbery.

In 2018, while he was out on parole after jail, he was shot in the back while walking home from a convenience store.

- I was in the hospital and I woke up and they was like, "You paralyzed," then I had a wheelchair on the side of my bed.

- [Narrator] Like many people, Jamel also wanted a gun for self-defense.

- [Jamel] I was just carrying it for my safety.

- The world is getting crazy, I know God is my protector, but I don't think he would mind if I had a little extra protection.

- [Narrator] In recent years, gun sales have gone up, but not everyone sees the need to own one.

- I don't have a reason to carry a gun.

I'm not preying on anyone.

I don't have any quarrel with anyone.

- [Narrator] Michael works as an IT analyst and music producer.

- On the off chance of me getting into an altercation, it's a little less likely if you behave in a way that keeps you out of that type of trouble.

- [Narrator] Michael grew up near downtown on Kansas City's East Side.

The immediate area was considered safe, but occasionally, gun violence would spill in.

- I can remember sitting at the table doing my homework.

Wah-wah-wah.

Okay, that's a high-caliber gun.

By the way, we know calibers of guns.

Didn't know as my friend Aaron Pitman getting shot at the street over at Jordan from a friend of his or something like that, so I don't know that.

You hear 'em all the time, you never know what's going on.

After a while, you start to try to ignore that, just because it's too much.

- [Narrator] The following year, in 1991, when Michael was 14, one of his friends decided to get a gun after a group of guys with guns had threatened them.

- And as I turned, it just kind of, "What happened?"

They ran to me, "Are you hit?"

- [Narrator] Michael's friend had accidentally shot him.

- I see a gleaming hole that immediately starts bleeding red.

- [Announcer] He nearly died.

- And oh.

Oh, oh, and I tensed up.

- [Narrator] He still lives on the East Side of Kansas City, but further to the south.

- I don't wanna say, "Take away all the guns," but geez, do you have to have so many?

They get into hands of people they probably shouldn't be.

- [Narrator] But that's not the whole story of guns.

- I load the firearm.

Again, muzzle pointed downrange.

It will not shoot until I decide which barrel I want to shoot.

(gun reports) - [Narrator] On this day, in the fall of 2021, David is the safety coordinator on a hunt near Peculiar, 30 miles south of Kansas City.

- We're looking forward to have a fun day.

And again, the number one thing we stress on these hunts is safety.

- It's a generational thing here for us.

It's the opportunity to be able to experience something like this at a young age as I got to do this when I was a kid.

- [Narrator] Generally, hunting legally in Missouri or Kansas requires a hunting license, and that's only issued once you've passed a safety course.

These young men took it the previous day.

(gun reports) - [Hunter] Good shot, good shot.

- [Narrator] In Missouri, the hunter education course teaches how to safely store a gun, transport it, and then use it in the field.

- And the purpose is to not hurt yourself or hurt other people.

- [Narrator] But as in most states, Kansas and Missouri don't require safety training if you just wish to purchase a gun.

- If you purchase a car, the kids have to take driver's education.

Guns are weapons just like the cars are weapons.

- This is AK-47 sporting rifle.

People have a bad habit of calling them assault weapons.

A lot of the gun laws they make, to me, are stupid.

But in my opinion, if you own a firearm, you should be required to get trained.

I think that should be one of the laws.

- [Narrator] Within the last decade, Missouri and Kansas have done away with the need for training if you wish to carry a concealed handgun on you in public.

Former Governor Sam Brownback of Kansas said at the time, "Americans have a right to be armed.

It is a constitutional right, and we're removing a barrier to that right."

Not everyone who knows guns agrees with the changes to the law.

- I'm in favor of concealed carry.

But to me, it should be required for concealed carry people to have firearm training on.

(gun reports) - I do like my hunting, I'm a former SWAT guy.

I like my guns, I like to have fun, but I do know that there does need to be some training.

- [Narrator] At the Police Athletic League or PAW in Strawberry Hill, Kansas City, Kansas, they mentor over a thousand local kids.

Tonight is their first class on gun safety.

- We're realist, we said, "These kids are encountering guns, but what they aren't encountering is the information about how deadly they can be."

They're getting the same gun safety as I got in the police academy.

- [Narrator] In 2020, a little over 2,200 kids died from gunshot wounds in the US.

That was up around 30% on the year before.

Dr. Denise Dowd works at Children's Mercy Hospital.

- Suicide, homicide, unintentional injury, where kids find a gun, shoot themselves.

Unfortunately, it's common.

- [Narrator] Dr. Dowd believes the curiosity of kids and the impulsiveness of teenagers don't mix well with guns.

In her view, lessons can be learned from how we've reduced deaths on our roads.

- That's largely the story of the success not of people just driving safer, but the success of engineering of cars to make 'em safer, engineering of highways to make them safer, laws about speeding.

We can apply the same approach to gun death in this country if we had the willpower to do so.

- [Narrator] Before helping to open the PAW in 2019, Matt had a 23-year career on the other side of the stateline with KCPD.

During his time as an officer, he came across guns more often.

- When I was first on, you would encounter people with firearms, but it wasn't every day.

It went from that to guns are everywhere.

I think gun laws have changed.

- [Narrator] In 2007, Missouri repealed its permit-to-purchase law.

This required a background check for any purchase of a handgun, including from an unlicensed seller.

The repeal is associated with the rising gun deaths in the state.

If you wish to buy a gun from a federally-licensed store like this one, there's a process in place.

- So we need an actual ID, and then we have a standard form here that the federal government issues to us.

It's the ATF FBI background check.

You could get a gun and walk out with it today if you do pass that background check.

- [Narrator] The background check helps to keep guns out of the hands of felons or those are judged by the court to be mentally incompetent.

However, in Kansas and Missouri, checks like this aren't required for private sales.

- Gun locks as well with the purchase here to keep the weapons stored safely.

- [Narrator] Your purchase of a handgun from a licensed store should come with a gun lock, but a private seller wouldn't have to give you one.

- But that way, it's locked and secure.

- You have to go through more red tape to buy a pack of cigarettes as a teenager in the state of Missouri than to get a handgun.

- And welcome back for the discussion portion of today's program.

With us in studio today is Rachel Riley, President of the East 23rd Street Pac, Dr. Stacey Daniels-Young, Former Chair of Kansas City's Commission on Violent Crime, Mr. David Wyatt, gun safety officer and instructor, as well as Jo Ella Hoye, Kansas State Representative, formerly with Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.

I made a few assumptions, one of those being that we have a gun problem in America.

And I'm just curious from each of our guests, do you feel like that's actually right?

Do we have a gun problem in America?

I'll start with you, Dr. Stacey Daniels-Young.

- I perceive that we do have a gun problem, but it's interesting that neither one of those commissions that I chaired, we really didn't try to confront that because we kind of started out saying, "Oh, we can't do anything about it.

The state says we can't do anything."

But we had those underlying attitudes.

- And so I'm curious from your perspective, Rachel.

Your organization is fighting hard over on East 23rd Street Pac to make sure that the area is safe.

Do you perceive that we have a gun problem in Kansas City or specifically, in your neighborhood if not the whole metropolitan area?

- Most definitely, we do have a gun problem.

Unfortunately, a lot of times, we kind of sugarcoat what's really going on in Kansas City when it comes to guns.

Actually, the problem is a lot larger than a gun problem.

We have a people problem, we have a care problem.

Once that happens, the people in our communities, especially on the East Side where I live and where I fight, unfortunately, the tools that it takes to survive and live are not there.

And unfortunately, ever since the 80s, in my neck of the wood, drugs and guns have been kind of just dumped in the community.

And so a lot of our community are spending time protecting theirselves, safeties of loved ones and families.

Guns in our neighborhood is pretty much the answer.

- State Representative Jo Ella Hoye, Do you feel like we have a gun problem?

You're on the other side of the stateline of the Kansas side.

Is it just a city, an urban core problem?

Or are you seeing it there?

What do you feel?

- Gun violence is at crisis levels nationwide, and Kansas and Missouri are both states that have been gradually weakening our gun laws over the course of the past decade.

We know that in 2020, gun violence was the leading cause of death for people under the age of 25.

It is at crisis levels for youth and children.

And in Kansas from 2011 to 2020, gun homicide has increased by 90%.

And I believe we wouldn't have a gun problem if lawmakers like me would come together and pass sensible gun laws that save lives.

- And I think that kind of gets to the heart of the matter.

And so I wanna go to you, David Wyatt.

I mean, you are a gun safety expert and instructor.

I'm curious, do you feel like we have a gun problem, and do you feel like the problem is that there are too many guns or that maybe enough people don't know how to use their guns safely?

- The term expert sort of scares me, but I do feel (Rashaan laughs) we have a gun problem, but the gun problem is also predicated by a lack of education of the people that have firearms and economics disparity and also the fact that we need to enforce the laws that we already have on the books to an extent.

So if we could face those three issues, I think that would be one way of going to solve some of the problems.

- Well, I think as David mentioned, there are a lot of guns and there's more and more, and it's kind of juxtaposition.

We talk about poverty, but guns are kind of expensive, and people find a way to get them if they feel that they need one for their protection.

And so as long as we teach people that that's how you protect yourself or that's how you respond to conflict, and it can't just be a one-time, 10-week course.

It has to be for lifetime.

We have to start raising kids to know that violence isn't the way that you handle conflict or you handle problems.

You have a hammer in your hand, everything looks like a nail.

If you have a gun, you're much more likely to end up with some violence than if you just had your fists.

- It seems to me that there's a fear problem too.

As Dr. Stacey mentioned, there's people who are fearing for their own safety and protection, but on the other hand, it sounds like we have politicians and elected officials who are fearful of the backlash that might come based off of what you were saying.

So can you speak to that?

- Absolutely.

And we all wanna keep our families safe, of course, but we've already been talking about training.

And in Kansas, we ended the requirement to have a permanent training to carry a hidden loaded handgun back in 2015.

And lawmakers were told by people providing testimony that more guns would make us safer, but in fact, guns in the hands of untrained and potentially dangerous people have not made our communities safer.

And I believe it's very necessary to make sure that people have permits and training if they're gonna concealed carry.

And we've seen nationwide also, and especially in states that have enacted permitless carry, a rise in gun thefts.

People are leaving guns unsecured in their vehicles, leaving them in unlocked cars, and that is providing more access to people who may have intent to do harm with those guns or to sell them in markets to people who would otherwise fail a background check from a federally-licensed gun dealer.

- David, if somebody is thinking about getting a gun, what does safety training look like?

If you can give us a short and concise response to that.

- I'm looking at changing youth attitudes toward firearms.

And if you wait till they're 13 or 14, you're not gonna change those attitudes.

I'm looking at think people who have firearms in the home taking safety courses to know how to protect these farms and also the people, and also realize everyone doesn't need a firearm.

Some people in a lot of the courses I teach, one of the first things we say is, "You may not be one that needs a firearm.

You might not fit the mold of someone who needs a firearm.

A firearm might not be the answer to what's making you feel unsafe."

So we've gotta start teaching these things early, and also teach that there's other uses for firearm.

For me and most of the people I deal with, firearms are a recreational tool or hunt or teach kids, use how to hunt.

This is used to keep families together, our mentoring youth.

These are the type of things that we need in order to get past some of this, to show people what firearms can be used for other than violence.

And that's the only thing we're showing now, the violent end of firearms.

- 8 in 10 people who own guns in America have multiple reasons for why they own a gun.

Multiple major reasons, but about 67% of them cite personal safety as a reason to own a gun.

You mentioned recreation and sport or hunting, but do you find that most of the people who come to you for training are there because they want to make sure that they can properly defend themselves or that they have that as a reason for wanting to own a gun?

- I would say the majority of them do, and that's where education comes in to teach them that a firearm might not be the answer.

Most people don't realize what a firearm is capable of doing.

Education about what a firearm can do and what your responsibilities are if you use this firearm in a (indistinct) manner are two of the key things that I work on teaching in firearm safety and dealing with firearms.

- I have to ask this question of Rachel Riley.

You are very involved in violence prevention work in this community and specifically in your neighborhood, and it's neighborhood that I personally know very well.

And I'm just curious, your thoughts on gun ownership, because I think a lot of our viewers might be surprised to find that even given your work, you are a gun owner.

Can you talk about what prompted you to take that step and what that experience for you has been like?

- Yes, actually, I am true faith believer in God, and I know he's my protector, but I don't think he would mind if I had a little extra protection in my- (laughs) (Rashaan chuckles) - [Rashaan] A couple angels named Smith and Wesson, I got it.

(laughs) - Actually, in my community, the training, the registration policies and all those things that we're talking about are wonderful.

The realization in my community is that 80 to 90% of those residents and unfortunately, those that are committing crime are not gun owners.

And I'm just being real, now that I carry a nine-millimeter, I learned a lot about guns, the power of that gun.

And when it does fire is, I'm just gonna be real, it's almost traumatizing to know that someone will shoot this gun and it would hit a human being and basically just tear their flesh to parts.

So it's very alarming.

Sometime, as I'm shooting like, oh God, I feel guilty because it's like someone is actually using this firearm in order to, and I get it, protect ourselves, protect our families, but at the same time, if we're not trained and we don't know anything about guns, it is alarming.

- Well, every month on our website, we answer your questions about life in Kansas City and the issues you care about through our curiousKC initiative.

Let's hear from our senior reporter Mary Sanchez about our question of the month.

- This month's curiousKC question comes from Nathaniel, who asks simply, "Why does anyone need a gun?"

- People think it makes them feel safer, especially if they know they're around other people that have guns and they don't wanna be caught without one, but I was really intrigued by Dave's comment about everybody doesn't need a gun.

And when Rachel mentioned the eight-year-old, maybe it's families with little kids because I bet most people don't think about that more suicides are committed by guns than homicides.

And I remember when I was with COMBAT we would give out gun locks.

We would have kids come and asking for a gun lock 'cause they knew there was a gun in the house and they had a parent who hadn't thought of that.

So I mean, I think people think it's gonna protect them, but they don't think about how it could be used in the heat of the moment in the wrong way, by somebody who's depressed or by a kid who's playing with it.

- I think it could be very easy for people to assume that the goal of many legislators or government, more broadly speaking, is to take away guns and limit freedoms.

I don't hear you saying that.

What is your message?

And to those people who are thinking about getting a gun and we have that curiousKC question from Nathaniel about who needs the gun, do you need to have a gun?

Where are you, and what is it that you're actually saying either as a state representative or formerly as an activist with Moms Demand Action?

- Well, in Kansas, in our constitution have it written that you have a right to hunt.

And we do have a very active history with gun ownership in our state.

And I myself am a gun owner, but circling back on a few things that are said, really, the onus is on adults to protect kids from unsupervised access to guns.

And so putting that messaging out there, advocating for safe and responsible gun ownership is really a priority for me.

And there are things that we can do legislatively with our laws that help keep guns out of the hands of people for example, those with domestic violence, misdemeanors, stalking orders, restraining orders.

A bill that I'd been working on in the legislature would require upon conviction of the domestic violence, misdemeanors, stalking orders, and restraining orders to require a judge to issue a relinquishment order.

Those individuals are prohibited from purchasing and possessing firearms, but they may already be in possession of a gun.

And so we're circling back to hearing let's enforce the laws that we already have on the books.

Let's pass some of these enforcement mechanisms that give law enforcement the tools they need to keep our community safe.

- We hear this all the time that 84% of American citizens across all political stripes, rural, urban, suburban, all feel like background checks are a simple, common sense step we can take that doesn't impinge or infringe upon anybody's rights, but we can't seem to move the needle on that.

What is your message to fellow elected officials at whatever the rung of the ladder they may be on, locally or nationally?

What is it that they're missing that they're not getting?

And maybe does it go back to that conversation we had earlier about courage, or is there something else?

- Well, I think that the national discussion related to guns, it turns to like you're either this way or that way, you're either for guns or against guns.

And we need to be willing to talk to people and say, "No, I am not anti-gun, but we have a duty to public safety and to our communities to study this more and to pass laws that we have seen work.

Background checks do prevent people from purchasing and possessing firearms from gaining access."

And I think it is just a matter of being willing to step up and make the case for these without being worried about what someone's gonna call you because our communities need us now to be taking action, confronting domestic violence, suicide, the rising rates of violent crime, and saying what we're doing now isn't working.

If more guns made us safer, America would be the safest country in the world.

- One, I'd like to compliment the Kansas representative because one of the things that Kansas is doing now is pushing to get firearm safety and gun safety back into the schools, the hunter ed program.

That's a positive move.

The other thing is that firearm safety is part of education and it's part of people knowing how parents need to know what their kids are doing.

Parents need to set the example.

Most of these firearms that have been used in crimes are not by people that have taken firearm safety classes.

They're stolen firearms.

So we can make all the laws we want to make, but unless we start enforcing the laws that we have and start going back to the social aspect of teaching families how to be families and mentors how to mentor, we're going to have a problem.

So we need to work hard at the family structure to make sure we can handle some of these other problems that are creating the gun problem.

- And do you think we have reached the tipping point?

Are we sort of out too far in terms of the number of guns and who has them?

- We have almost lost a generation of positive gun owners.

- Have we gone too far in America?

Have we sort of passed the tipping point where is the issue of gun prevalence in America leading us to a point of no return?

- We've never gone too far to the point where we still can't educate those that are coming along.

Those that have guns, registered guns.

Unfortunately, in my community, a lot of the guns are already here.

Whether they have been stolen, whether they have been dropped off in the neighborhood, they're here.

I think we should do our part.

As far as in my neighborhood, 70, 80% of the homicides happen on the East Side, where I grew up, I lived day to day, working with those young men.

Unfortunately, in our neighborhoods, because of the crime and violence, a lot of these young men, excuse me, come to me and say, "Hey, this is why I carry."

It's like, "Where did you get a gun?"

Of course they don't tell you that, but it's somewhere from your cousin's friend, whoever from the community and not knowing a lot of these young men are carrying guns that are probably bigger than some of the people that are using them in our Armed Forces.

But it's never a loss when we can educate those that are in our communities, showing positive things.

This is why we're doing the neighborhood cleanups, we're doing the family events, we're addressing a lot of the issues of education and the homelessness.

We're not talking about it, we're showing our residents, "Hey, in collaboration, we all can come together, and this is what it looks like."

Slowly but surely, we're coming together to try to turn this nightmare, as what I call it, in our communities around.

- And that's where we wrap up today's conversation for this episode of "Flatland".

That's been Rachel Riley, President of the East 23rd Street Pac, Dr. Stacey Daniels-Young, Former Chair of the Kansas City Commission on Violent Crime, Mr. David Wyatt, gun safety officer and instructor, and Jo Ella Hoye, Kansas State Representative, formerly with Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.

Thank you for joining us.

You can watch the entirety of "The Gun Conundrum" documentary at kansascitypbs.org and you can submit your very own curiousKC question for next month's topic at flatlandshow.org.

This has been "Flatland".

I'm D. Rashaan Gilmore, and as always, thank you for the pleasure of your time.

- [Announcer] "Flatland" is brought to you in part through the generous support of AARP, the Health Forward Foundation, and RSM.