Council Ponders Homicide Surge KANSAS CITY, MO (kcur) - Kansas City, Missouri could set another record for homicides this year. There have been 90 to date, 20 more than this time last year, after a sudden upsurge in August. And a city council committee looked into what can be done about it yesterday.

Chief Jim Corwin let Deputy Chief Kevin Masters do most of the talking at the Public Safety and Neighborhoods committee. Masters is in charge of investigations. He told the group virtually all of the killings involved guns - most of those guns legally obtained by family members or associates of the one who used them in the crime. Can tougher laws regulating guns and ammunition help? Maybe a little, says the veteran lawmaker, but not much.

"It's kind of like the prohibition period," he commented, "I think crooks will always find a way to obtain the instruments that they need to further their enterprise."

Masters says every perpetrator has some sane, solid-citizen in his or her life, and those people need to get involved in trying to influence their less responsible friends or family members.
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