2020 is expected to go down in Missouri history as the state’s deadliest year for gun violence.
Nearly 700 people were shot and killed last year in Missouri. The Kansas City Star reports St. Louis makes up 260 of the homicides and Kansas City accounts for 161 of them. Springfield in southwest Missouri, the state’s third-largest city, doubled its number of fatal shootings with 23.
The newspaper says Missouri has the third-highest per capita rate of gun deaths in the country, behind Louisiana and Mississippi. The newspaper says in 2020, Black men, made up 61 percent of Kansas City’s murder victims and 78 percent for St. Louis.
