KANSAS CITY, MO — The family of 12-year-old murder victim Brian Henderson and community leader Tommy Simmons are pleased city council members are trying to end gun violence plaguing KCMO.
The council passed an ordinance Thursday on a 12 - 1 vote that would ban kids and teens from buying ammunition.
Brilyn Henderson, whose brother was murdered, was thrilled the ordinance passed.
“I was 15 when I lost my brother and I was 15 when I started losing friends,” Henderson, now 17, said.
Henderson knows her peers should not have to cope with the loss of family and friends to gun violence.
“It shouldn’t be like that for us because we are so young, we are still teenagers. We have our whole life ahead of ourselves,” Brilyn said, “But a lot of people in my generation really just be happy to make it to 18 and even 16 at this point.”
Brilyn’s younger brother, Brian, was just 12 when he was shot and killed by a teenager.
“I still can't believe it, I still cry every single day,” said Monica Henderson, Brian's mother. “For him to lose his life at 12 and and the other kid to lose their life at 16 because he was sentenced to life. Because basically his life was over at 16 all because of their fascination with firearms.”
As a mother who suffered a devastating loss, Monica Henderson and her husband Brian are happy to see the city trying ways to keep ammunition out of the hands of kids and teens.
“It’s a breath of fresh air for the city to be making those type of moves and moving forward as a community as a city,” said Monica Henderson.
“We needed better gun control, gun control laws, some sort of ordinances," Brian Henderson Sr. said. "Something had to change and this is an actual change that I was hoping was a step in the right direction."
Brian says this is only the first step.
He wants to see more done within the juvenile justice system.
“If the penalties were more harsh then we could curve their thoughts, their thought process,” Henderson said.
Community leader Tommy Simmons has been working on this issue for 10 years.
He said the violence is a scary reality for kids in Kansas City.
“You will let kids buy bullets for an AK-47 or even to let them have them," Simmons said. "Most kids you ride around, they ride around with they AK-47 on the seat. Where we at, in Vietnam?” Simmons said.
Simmons is glad the ordinance passed Thursday and he hopes more work will be done to keep guns out of the hands of felons.
“If we had had background checks on bullets a long time ago all the way around, then I think it might be 50 murders,” Simmons said,” What made the gun more of a culprit than the bullets? Because you can’t have one without the other, but if you got a background check on the gun, but you don’t have a background check on the bullets that don’t make sense to me.”
