Corbin Smith
Editorial Assistant

On July 1, Mayor Quinton Lucas, State Rep. Mark Sharp (D-36) and Kansas Citian Shanahan DeMoss, and KCPD gathered on the steps of Kansas City, Missouri, Police Department Headquarters and addressed concerns related to “celebratory gunfire,” when someone goes to shoot their gun in the air in the same fashion as a firework to celebrate any occasion.

On Independence Day 2011, Blair Shanahan Lane, 11, was celebrating the holiday at her uncle’s house near Riss Lake when she was struck by a stray bullet. The next morning, she passed away in her hospital bed. Shanahan Lane’s mother, Michele Shanahan DeMoss still labels herself in a state of disbelief 10 years after the fact. She said guns can only maim and kill, so she finds celebratory gunfire pointless.

This act is dangerous because bullets fired in the air come back down, possibly striking someone or something that is unprotected. Sgt. Jake Becchina said the department has been fighting the issue for several years and urges citizens to stop this already illegal practice.

“As you hear people talking about going to get their guns to celebrate the holiday, please have a conversation with them,” Becchina said. “Tell them the real life consequences of what celebratory gunfire can do to a community, to a family, and to somebody’s life. That one bullet that doesn’t get fired could be the one that is somebody else’s life.”

Shanahan Lane would have been 21 and a half years old this Independence Day. Her mother explained that half birthdays were very important to Blair, and she made sure her mother knew it.

“There’s a choice to be made by the person that may pick up the gun — don’t fire it,” Shanahan DeMoss said. “I don’t want another mother, father or family to be seen anymore on TV. A life that could have been making a huge difference in our world. She could be getting married. Who knows what she’d be doing? The possibilities were stolen because of stupidity.”

For the last two years, KCPD has collected calls for service information from past 4th of July holidays. Using a window spanning from 6 p.m. July 3 to 6 a.m. July 5, 2019, KCPD received 46 alerts concerning illegal gunfire. The total number of rounds that were observed to be fired that year was 195 with the highest single round count in a single incident reported, being 18.

For the same window in 2020, the department received 31 alerts. However, 209 total rounds were observed, while the highest round count was 22.
Since the death of Shanahan Lane, Sharp has pushed for legislation introduced as “Blair’s Law” which will make discharging a firearm within or into Kansas City a felony crime.

If any gunshots were heard during the holiday weekend, KCPD urged residents to call 911.

In 2021, the KCPD received 130 calls of service about shots that were heard all across the city. Preliminary analysis from shotspotter showed that there were 51 gunfire alerts and 13 rounds fired off this past holiday weekend.
By 6 a.m. July 5, 2021, there were 11 gunshot victims. Of those victims, one was killed and the remaining victims sustained severe or life-threatening injuries.