The latest carnage represents the 309th mass shooting so far this year, according to the Archive of Armed Violence, a non-profit, and comes at a time when the country’s social and political divisions have deepened on multiple fronts: the reversal of the right to abortion; record inflation rates; the threat to democracy highlighted by the January 6 Capitol attacks.
Highland Park authorities released a photo of Robert Crimo III. Credit: City of Highland Park
It also comes at a time when armed violence is fresh in the minds of many: six weeks after being run over at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas; seven weeks after a racially motivated shooting at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York; two weeks after the Supreme Court overturned a New York law that limited who can carry a gun in public.
Illinois is no stranger to gun crime, especially in the Democrat-led city of Chicago, but Highland Park, home to a large Jewish population, is an affluent area full of quaint homes and lush streets, not the kind of place where I would expect to see such horror.
Although the motivation of the alleged gunman is still unclear, his characteristics fit a family pattern: a young white man armed with a weapon of mass destruction, deliberately targeting innocent people.
In Uvalde and Buffalo, the shooters were 18 years old; in Highland Park, Robert E Crimo, 22, is the person of interest.
Larry Bloom, who was in the area when the shooting began, told NBC Chicago that viewers initially thought the “pop” sound was part of the parade.
“You felt like a‘ pop, pop, pop ’and I think everyone thought maybe it was a show in one of the floats,” he said.
“Then it opened up. I was screaming and people were screaming. They were panicking and they were just scattering … You know, it was right on top of us.”
The shooting puts a new focus on the small but significant step Congress took last month, when it passed the first genuine bipartisan arms reform law in nearly 30 years.
The bill, which President Joe Biden has now signed into law, improves background checks for gun buyers aged 18 to 21; closes the so-called “boyfriend’s loophole” for domestic violence offenders who are not married to their partners; and establishes subsidies for states to encourage red-flag laws, which empower courts to order the withdrawal of a weapon if the individual is deemed to be dangerous.
Empty chairs and an American flag blanket are found lying on the ground after a mass shooting at the July 4 parade in Highland Park in downtown Highland Park, a suburb of Chicago, on July 4. Credit: AP
There is also funding for mental health and school safety, but broader reforms, such as universal background checks or an absolute ban on AR-style rifles, were not initiated.
Biden promoted the changes on Tuesday (AEST), but admitted there was “much more to do,” and said in a statement that he was “surprised” that another senseless shooting “has once again caused pain to a northern community.” -americana “.
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He also acknowledged, as he has done many times before, that armed violence is an “epidemic” in the US. The problem is that as long as assault rifles are easily accessible across the country, it will remain so.
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