US Senators Focus on Highland Park in Gun Hearing

Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering at a news conference outside the Highland Park Police Department, less than 24 hours after a gunman killed seven people and wounded dozens more by firing a high-powered rifle from a rooftop onto a crowd attending Highland Park's Fourth of July parade. — Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering at a news conference outside the Highland Park Police Department, less than 24 hours subsequently a gunman killed 7 people and wounded dozens more past firing a high-powered rifle from a rooftop onto a oversupply attending Highland Park's Fourth of July parade.

WASHINGTON — The massacres in Buffalo, Uvalde and Highland Park, where people were chop-chop killed and wounded past gunmen using assault rifles with loftier capacity magazines, has thrown a spotlight — again — on the consequence of selling military grade weapons to civilians.

While the latest slaughters reignited calls for an set on weapons ban, getting votes to limit access to weapons best suited for a battlefield is — has been, and for the moment, seems destined to yet be — difficult to impossible in Congress. Which doesn't mean activists should stop pushing to find more Republican votes.

Which brings united states of america to Wednesday, when the Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., presides over a hearing titled, "After the Highland Park Attack: Protecting Our Communities from Mass Shootings."

A large contingent from Lake County will exist in the audience for the hearing, to start at ix a.g. Chicago time.

The July 4th Highland Park parade attack killed seven, wounded dozens and left entire communities traumatized. According to the Judiciary Committee, Highland Park was the 309th mass shooting this yr.

The hearing "will focus on the dangers of widespread civilian admission to war machine-style assault weapons that can be used to kill large numbers of people in mere seconds" and one of the featured witnesses volition be Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering.

Rotering brings a unique perspective to the tragedy because as mayor she was the driving force behind Highland Park's ban on assault weapons and big capacity magazines, passed by the Northward Shore suburb'southward Urban center Council on June 24, 2013.

Rotering has been mayor since 2011 and before that was a member of the Urban center Council, starting in 2009.

Other witnesses invited by the Democrats are:

Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., an Iraq state of war vet who on the Senate floor final calendar week detailed the awful precision of assault weapons — designed for warfare — not for sports or even self-defense force. For an "evil purpose, a semi-automatic rifle is the perfect weapon, because it is lightweight, portable and easy to load with loftier-capacity magazines," Duckworth said, pleading for an attack weapons ban.

Dr. Kyleanne Hunter, a senior political scientist for the RAND Corporation. According to Brady, an organization long in the boxing to reduce gun violence, Hunter "will specifically bear witness to the tactical difficulties of dealing with and stopping a mass shooter armed with an assault weapon and/or loftier-capacity magazines."
Joseph Blocher, from the Duke Academy School of Police force, who, according to the Knuckles website, in his academic work "addresses issues of gun rights and regulation, free speech, the law of the territories, and the relationship betwixt police and violence."

The Republican witnesses are:

Philip Smith, the Founder and President of National African American Gun Association, a gun rights group.
Russell Bentley, the co-founder and senior analyst at Safe Havens International, an organization with a focus on school safe.

Post-obit the hearing, Durbin, Duckworth and Rotering will exist joined at a news conference with state Rep. Bob Morgan, D-Deerfield, whose district includes Highland Park and Lake County State'due south Attorney Eric Rinehart.

The contingent traveling from Lake Canton to Washington includes Sandy Hart, the Lake County Lath chair plus Highland Park Metropolis Quango members Adam Stolberg, Andres Tapia Michelle Holleman and Annette Lidawer.

In addition, in that location volition exist two former Highland Park Metropolis Council members who voted for the 2013 assault weapons ban, Paul Frank, at present on the Lake County Lath representing Highland Park, Highwood and Deerfield; and Alyssa Knobel.

Esteban Carbajal, an immigration attorney at the North Suburban Legal Aid Dispensary, will be in the audience. I asked him on Tuesday why he fabricated the trip.

Not speaking for the clinic, Carbajal, a Highwood resident who was at the parade with his mother and sister, told me he came to Washington to attend the hearing "to be a silent witness."

Said Carbajal, "This just can't be the new normal in the country."

Source: https://chicago.suntimes.com/columnists/2022/7/19/23270781/highland-park-attack-senate-hearing-protecting-our-communities-mass-shootings

Posted by: lipscombmayes1951.blogspot.com