‘Congress Must Do More NOW,’ Sanders Says After Mass Shooting at July 4th Parade

Sen. Bernie Sanders said late Monday that Congress must take far more ambitious legislative action to combat the scourge of gun violence in the United States in the wake of the mass shooting at a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois.

“Today’s terrible shooting in Highland Park is the latest reminder of our nation’s deadly gun violence epidemic,” Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote on Twitter. “Grocery stores. Schools. Churches. Fourth of July parades. Places everyone should feel safe. Congress must do more NOW to protect our people.”

The shooting, which left at least six people dead and dozens more wounded, came just over a week after President Joe Biden signed into law a compromise bill that does not contain an assault-weapons ban, universal background checks, and other popular measures that advocates and experts say are needed to meaningfully reduce gun violence.

Passage of the bipartisan legislation was spurred by the horrific massacres in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas in May—among the hundreds of mass shootings that have taken place across the U.S. this year. While some Democratic lawmakers pushed for more aggressive action, the National Rifle Association and the Republican lawmakers it bankrolls objected, as they’ve done for the past decade following mass shooting after mass shooting.

Right-wing Democrats such as Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) have thus far refused to support calls to eliminate or reform the 60-vote filibuster, meaning the Democratic majority needs GOP support to get most legislation through the upper chamber.

“The Bipartisan Gun Law was a first step,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said Monday, “but Congress must do more to stop this deadly epidemic and save lives.”

Robert Crimo, 22, has been taken into custody as a “person of interest” in the Chicago suburb shooting. Authorities said the gunman, perched on a rooftop near the parade route, used a high-powered rifle to open fire on the crowd gathered in Highland Park to celebrate the Fourth of July.

While Illinois has some of the most stringent gun laws in the U.S.—and Highland Park banned assault weapons in 2013, overcoming opposition from the Illinois Rifle Association—neighboring states have far more lax regulations in place.

As Everytown for Gun Safety noted in a report published earlier this year, “Illinois is surrounded by states with much weaker laws, and an outsized share of likely trafficked guns recovered in Illinois are originally purchased out-of-state—especially in Indiana, just across the border from Chicago.”

Originally published at Commondreams.org, written by Jake Johnson.