Mass shootings in America have become so common that an official handbook has been prepared to help mayors cope with a shooting in their community.
How the first funerals are held for the victims of the mass shooting of Independence Day near Chicago in Illinoisthe mayor of the town it happened in, Highland Park, revealed his shock to discover the manual exists.
Vice President Kamala Harris (L) with Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering (R)
“No mayor who is ever prepared for this [shooting] but there is a handbook for mayors for mass shooting situations, ”Mayor Nancy Rotering told Sky News.
“A 198-page manual that is now being sent to us in an attempt to help us, because so many have preceded us in this ridiculous tragedy.
“And it infuriates me because there is no excuse. There is no reason for weapons of war to be on the streets of the United States.”
Seven people were shot dead and 46 more were injured on Monday morning when local 21-year-old Robert E. Crimo III opened fire from a rooftop on an Independence Day parade. .
All those who have died have now been named. Katherine Goldstein was 64, Nicolas Toledo-Zaragoza, 78, Eduardo Uvaldo, 69, Jacquelyn Sundheim, 63, and Steven Straus, 88. Husband and wife Irina and Kevin McCarthy were participating in the parade with their 2-year-old son. He survived unscathed but both died.
Robert E. Crimo III faces seven counts of murder. Pic: Lake County Major Crime Task Force
Crimo was charged with seven counts of first degree murder and prosecutors are expected to bring more charges for the more than 46 people injured in the attack.
He bought his weapons legally despite having knives seized from him in 2019 and is known to mental health officials.
“The laws aren’t doing what they have to do to protect American citizens,” Mayor Rotering told Sky News.
Contrasting the gun lobby’s argument that gun rights represent a fundamental American freedom protected by the US Construction Second Amendment, the mayor says, “You say we need to have a national conversation about what freedom means.
“We were there to celebrate freedom and in the end we ran to save our lives. There is no reason these weapons are in our streets. It has nothing to do with freedom. It has everything to do with terror.”
According to data collected by the Gun Violence Archive, a staggering 220 people were killed as a result of gun violence across America during the July 4th holiday last weekend and 570 were injured.
In the same four-day vacation period, there were 11 incidents classified as mass shootings.
A police officer walks along Central Ave in Highland Park after the shooting
Any shooting in which four or more people, other than the gunman, are killed or injured is classified as a mass shooting.
The mayor, who was at the Highland Park parade and among those who fled, revealed that his city is among the few who attempt to change gun laws from below rather than rely on states or the federal government to introduce bans. .
“Our city passed a ban on assault weapons in 2013 and a ban on large-capacity magazines through a strange permutation of the law. We are now working with the governor, the President of the Senate, the Speaker of the House and lawmakers to allow other Illinois municipalities to ban them Weapons.
“We know it’s access that is causing this problem. Every other country in this world that has people who have mental health problems, who have anger problems, who play violent video games, don’t have access to these weapons. We need to talk. why we are still allowing access to these weapons of war. “
Abandoned chairs at the scene of a mass shooting at a July 4th parade on Central Avenue in Highland Park, Illinois on Monday, July 4, 2022. (John Starks / Daily Herald via AP)
In a memorial service for one of the victims, Jacquelyn Sundheim, the rabbi, Wendi Geffen said: “We shouldn’t be here today. There is nothing – not even a single thing – that makes it acceptable for us to be gathered to mourn Jacki.
“We are horrified. We are angry, disgusted, saddened, inconsolable at the terror that hit us and robbed us of Jacki.”
The service was live streamed and Jacquelyn Sundheim’s daughter asked people to use their pain to make the world a better place.
“I want you every day to put a little more joy and kindness into this world. Don’t let this sadness, this fear, this anger make you bitter towards our world. The world is darker without my mother, and that’s all. it’s up to us now to fill it with a little more laugh, “he said.
