Kansas City, Missouri Mayor Sly James has had enough. After a triple murder last night, in which one of the victims was a one-year-old child, Mayor James pleaded for the community to "rise up" and stop the violence. He also said that until we start taking gun control more seriously, as a city and a country, this will never end. We just have to have the guts to change.

He made the following impassioned comments while standing in front of the house where the triple murder took place. It's a must-read.



This violence that's going on is rampant. Not just here, but across this entire country. Doesn't seem to be slowing down. Don't know what's causing it. Nobody has any silver bullet answers as to how to stop it. All I know is, that when guns are as prolific as candy in some circumstances, people are going to abuse them and it's going to result in people dying.

It's the same old stuff. We know what's going on in terms of violence, we just don't have the guts to change it. Everybody wants to protect their rights, but while we're doing all of that we are forgetting people are being killed at ridiculous rates. And we are doing everything we can do, but I don't know how you stop some things. You can't put a police officer next to everybody as a personal bodyguard. You can't put a police officer in everybody's house. You can't cover every square inch of 318 square miles with a police officer. And people continue to die.

There was a situation just the other where somebody got shot—there were three Jackson County sheriffs within a half block. Didn't stop it. Idiots who have guns are going to use those guns for bad things and until we come to grips with that and start taking guns out of the hands of people who shouldn't have them, we're going to continue to have this. It's just that simple. And we keep saying it and saying it and saying it and it never, ever changes.

So, you know, I'm about as frustrated as I can get. Somehow people expect me and him (points at police officer) to wipe this problem off the books and that ain't gonna happen. If people want this to stop then they need to rise up and make it stop. It's not just him, it's not just me, it's everybody in this city. And we need to tell what we know. We need to do things about letting people have guns who shouldn't have guns and we need to stop it. But, until we start doing some basic things and doing what we know would work, then we're going to have this problem.

Reporter: Did you talk to the family tonight or anybody in the neighborhood?

Mayor Sly James: No.

Reporter: Any message you would give them?

Mayor Sly James: The same message to every family who's lost someone due to senseless violence. What do you say to somebody like that who one minute has a family member or brother or sister, mother or father and the next minute their gone? And won't be back. And they have to live with that and all the stuff that follows after that. And the cost attended to it, in terms of your psyche and emotions and your family and what it does. And you come up with all that trauma and kids are raised in that trauma, react in the same way and get involved with violence. And then we do it all over again. We do it all over again. We just continue to do it all over again. So, my question is—people keep saying—well, where are you? Well, I'm right here. What are you doing? I'm standing right here and we're doing what we can. I'm working with the police, I'm working with everybody that we can to try to do something. I'm going to ask a question—where are they? Where's everybody else? We want this to stop, then let's see it stop. Rise up and make it stop.

Reporter: How hard is it to come out here when it's a child?

Mayor Sly James: It's ridiculous! It's absolutely ridiculous. There is no reason that I can think of why any child should ever be at the end of a bullet! I don't know how to deal with that. Don't know how to deal with hit. I've got kids. You've got kids. Everybody has kids. Nobody wants to see a child in that way. The child didn't do anything to anybody. Had nothing to do with whatever was going on that caused all of this, whatever it was. That child was an innocent person. I don't care what the adults did. That child did nothing. So, I don't have much more I can say, because I'm just really ticked. And there's nothing that I can do about it except go back to the drawing board and try to find something else, figure out some way of getting things done and beat my head against the same wall that he beats his head against (points to police officer) and we all beat our head against, so that we can come out to the next murder of a child and see it happen again.