According to Kansas City Police, the city is on track to break last year's record of firearm-related homicides, which totaled at 155.
KCUR's community engagement team is holding listening sessions across the Kansas City metro to learn how residents feel about guns.
"Nobody wants to see more people die by gun violence — everybody agrees on that. It's just how we get there," KCUR community engagement editor Laura Ziegler told KCUR's Up To Date Wednesday.
Ziegler appeared with KCUR community engagement reporter Zach Perez. Ziegler said their hope for the project is to ideally find common ground across Kansas City's diverse — and politically polarized — communities.
"We're trying to achieve some solutions-oriented content that may help people understand the nuance and complicated nature of this debate," she said.
"Oftentimes, we think of groups on either end of the [gun debate] spectrum as monoliths, but really it is a spectrum," Perez said.
Ziegler and Perez have recently published pieces based on the conversations they've heard during the listening sessions, including one piece about young Kansas Citians arming themselves against the rise of far-right violence.
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What do you think about the state of gun culture and gun violence in the Kansas City metro? Are you interested in finding out more about KCUR's community engagement efforts?
You can reach out to Laura Ziegler and Zach Perez, or message KCUR's texting service at (816) 601-4777 to share your thoughts and learn more.
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