Less than 36 hours after a gunman opened fire at a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, killing seven people, Vice President Kamala Harris arrived in the north suburbs Tuesday night calling for federal action on assault weapons.
“We need to be smarter as a country about who has access to what, specifically combat weapons,” said Harris, who was joined by Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering and other Democratic politicians. “And we have to take these things seriously. The entire nation needs to understand and have a level of empathy to understand that this can happen anywhere in any peaceful community. And we need to stand together and talk about why it needs to stop.”
Earlier in the day, Harris called for the reinstatement of a national ban on assault weapons.
[ What we know about the mass shooting at a Highland Park Fourth of July parade ]
“We still have a lot to do. We have more to do. Congress must have the courage to act and renew the ban on assault weapons,” Harris told a group of educators at the National Education Association conference at McCormick Place in Chicago. “We need sensible gun safety laws. And we need to get Congress to stop protecting these gun manufacturers with the liability shield. Cancel it. Cancel it.”
A few hours later, in a short speech delivered in the heart of Highland Park, Harris offered condolences from President Joe Biden.
“You know you have an entire nation that cares deeply about you and is there for you. It’s an incredibly tight-knit community. I know that,” Harris said. “And that person will be brought to justice, but that won’t undo what happened.” And we are here for you and we stand with you.”
Just hours before Harris visited Highland Park, Gov. JB Pritzker advocated for a statewide ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, while calling for similar action at the federal level.
“We urgently need federal regulations on weapons of war and high-capacity magazines that are used only for mass murder,” Pritzker said in a statement. “Illinois is not an island, and even with … some of the strictest gun laws in the nation, our state is as safe as the state with the weakest laws — many of which border Illinois.”
Vice President Kamala Harris walks next to Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering at the corner of Green Bay and Central in Highland Park on July 5, 2022, a day after a mass shooting that left 7 dead and more than 30 injured at a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park. (Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune)
Harris and Pritzker’s comments come amid a national debate over mass shootings and gun control efforts. Pritzker’s opponent in the fall, Republican candidate Darren Bailey, a state senator from Downstate Xenia, is an ardent gun rights supporter who opposes gun regulations.
On Tuesday, Bailey continued to try to walk back comments he made after the shooting when he posted a video on Facebook praying for the victims and law enforcement and declaring “let’s move on and let’s celebrate” the holiday. Bailey took to Twitter on Tuesday to push back against that sentiment and urged the public to “engage in better addressing mental health in Illinois and across the nation.”
In addition, Bailey also tried to connect the Highland Park parade shooting to the holiday weekend shooting of a 10-year-old boy on the South Side of Chicago, even though Highland Park is an affluent suburb 30 miles north of Chicago.
[ These are the victims of the Fourth of July parade shooting in Highland Park ]
“My team and I will continue to reach out to law enforcement, members of the public health community and others to find workable solutions to address these issues,” Bailey said. “We will also continue to call for a special (state legislative) session to prioritize our budget to better fund mental health services and law enforcement to ensure public safety is a priority in EVERY community.”
State Rep. Bob Morgan, a Deerfield Democrat who represents Highland Park, said that while funding for mental health could be increased and training to identify troubled youth could be improved, “there are things we still haven’t found the courage to do, such as banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.”
“We had police on every corner of the parade,” said Morgan, who was about to walk out in the parade with his wife and two children when shots rang out. “So having more police on its own wasn’t going to stop him. So what would stop him?’
Recent attempts to ban or restrict the sale and possession of assault weapons in Illinois have failed. Proposals introduced in both the House and Senate in the years since that would have banned assault weapons have not even received a vote in committee.
[ Purchase of rifle allegedly used in Highland Park massacre highlights limits of Illinois gun laws ]
State Rep. Maura Hirschauer, a Batavia Democrat who helped found a branch of the anti-gun violence group Moms Demand Action, introduced legislation in January that would, with few exceptions, ban the sale or possession of assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition – power supplies. The proposal was not moved out of committee.
The General Assembly passed a measure last year designed to strengthen background checks for gun sales and address problems that have allowed people to keep their guns after losing their firearms owner identification card. Hirschauer said it was time to take broader steps.
“We’re taking small bites of the apple, and we need to take bigger bites of the apple, and now is the time to do it with a ban on assault weapons and a ban on high-capacity magazines,” she said.
Opposition to tighter gun regulations among Democrats has traditionally come from downstate members, and Hirschauer said “it’s hard to know” how Monday’s events will affect that dynamic.
Ed Sullivan, a contract lobbyist for the Illinois State Rifle Association, said he thinks addressing “economic disparities and institutional racism” would be a more effective way to combat violence in the general sense than strengthening gun laws.
Sullivan, a former Republican state representative from Mundelein, also noted that while lawmakers have introduced measures to ban assault weapons over the years, he questioned the effectiveness of that option.
“There are lawmakers who have certain ideas about what should happen in gun control, and we certainly respect everybody’s ideas,” Sullivan said. “At the end of the day, we just saw a deranged man who didn’t follow the law. So if you ban them in Illinois, there will still be assault weapons and so the only people that will be affected are law abiding citizens.
jgorner@chicagotribune.com
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