Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday called on Congress to renew the federal assault weapons ban in the wake of a mass shooting at a Fourth of July parade that killed seven people in Highland Park, Ill.
Harris made remarks while speaking before the National Education Association’s annual meeting at the McCormick Convention Center in Chicago, which is located about 30 miles away from Highland Park.
The suspected gunman, Robert “Bobby” Crimo, 21, was charged Tuesday with seven counts of first-degree murder after authorities said he used a “high-powered” weapon to fire more than 70 rounds into the crowd of parade participants and attendees.
“Congress needs to have the courage to act and renew the assault weapons ban,” Harris said.
“There is no reason that we have weapons of war on the streets of America. We need reasonable gun safety laws. And we need to have Congress stop protecting those gun manufacturers with the liability shield. Repeal it.”
Harris then went to Highland Park and delivered word salad.
Vice President Kamala Harris just spoke at the scene of the Highland Park mass shooting.
“We have to take this stuff seriously, as seriously as you are because you have been forced to take this seriously,” she said. pic.twitter.com/vpLSydpJM0
— Jake Sheridan (@JakeSheridan_) July 6, 2022
Harris said that the United States has “made some progress” regarding gun control, citing a bipartisan federal gun safety bill that President Joe Biden signed last month that provides funding for mental health services and school security in addition to strengthening background checks and closing the so-called “boyfriend loophole.”
She said, however, that “we still have more to do” to combat gun violence and called for the return of the assault weapons ban that was enacted under former President Bill Clinton and was in effect between 1994 and 2004, when it was not renewed. Multiple attempts to renew the ban over the years have failed.
“We need to end this horror. We need to stop this violence. And we must protect our communities from the terror of gun violence,” Harris said.
Speaking before the labor union, which represents public educators, Harris said teachers and parents of school children were among those impacted by the shooting, while noting that the nation is “still mourning” the loss of 19 students and two teachers killed in a shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, in May.
“This massacre was the most recent reminder — in Uvalde — of the risk that our children and our educators face every day,” she said. “Teachers should not have to practice barricading a classroom. Teachers should not have to know how to treat a gunshot wound, and teachers should not be told that lives would have been saved if only you had a gun.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during a press briefing Tuesday that Biden, who was traveling to Ohio to discuss the American Rescue Plan on Wednesday, did not “have any plans right now to go to Chicago” to address the shooting.
Biden, however, did issue a proclamation Tuesday ordering flags to be flown at half-staff Tuesday while describing the shooting as “a senseless act of gun violence.”
In remarks from a July 4 barbecue at the White House on Monday, Biden condemned the shooting while calling for more effort to combat gun violence.
“We’ve got more work to do, we’ve got to get this under control,” he said.
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“Assault weapon”—one of a number of pet terms used by the Left which they cannot accurately define and is loosely applied to describe any number of weapons. It creates the illusion that they have properly identified a problem when, in reality, they have not.
Response to Comment By ” Son Of Thunder…”
” terms used by the Left which they cannot accurately define …”Newest Person to be seated on the Sepreme Court, Thanks to democrat President, Joe Biden
Were We Surprised When The new former Female Judge can’t Define A Woman , and she is setting on the Supreme Court.
More like if they could, they would define it as ANY FIREARM..
Your laws ignore our deepest needs,
Your words are empty air.
You’ve stripped away our heritage,
You’ve outlawed simple prayer.
Now gunshots fill our classrooms,
And precious children die.
You seek for answers everywhere,
And ask the question “Why?”
You regulate restrictive laws,
Through legislative creed.
And yet you fail to understand,
That God is what we need!
“Men and women are three-part beings. We all consist of body, mind, and spirit. When we refuse to acknowledge a third part of our make-up, we create a void that allows evil, prejudice, and hatred to rush in and wreak havoc. Spiritual presences were present within our educational systems for most of our nation’s history. Many of our major colleges began as theological seminaries. This is a historical fact. What has happened to us as a nation? We have refused to honor God, and in so doing, we open the doors to hatred and violence. And when something as terrible as Columbine’s tragedy occurs — politicians immediately look for a scapegoat.
-Darrell Scott, the father of Rachel Scott, a victim of the Columbine High School shootings-
And isn’t it amazing that Columbine was shot to pieces with a shotgun and a handgun plus numerous homemade bombs were placed around the school and this happened during the “assault weapons” ban. I guess Columbine was a minor mass school shooting since the shooters didn’t use an AR15 or AK47.
TO some liberals, sure.. The eeevvvvvvvvvviiiiiiiiiillllllllllllll AR wasn’t used, so it doesn’t count.
this woman is an idiot!
I’m seriously beginning to believe that the extreme left wing Alinsky organized members of the Frankfurt school of Communism that Hitler chased out of Germany and settled at Columbia University where Obama Got his education in sealed records as to which communist/socialist studies he failed at or graduated to higher venues of socialist conquest, and how many others they have turned into brain washed demonstrating cadre’s of Manchurian candidates throughout the United States to target our Patriotic Parades and Schools for mass murdering when the trigger words are spoken, in order to obviate the protective acts of our second amendment rights as a prelude to overthrowing our True American Democracy. Kamala herself is showing all the signs of being brainwashed and responds like a programmed zombie to such trigger words as, Abortion, Black Lives Matter, Gun Violence, Border crossings, Race, Genders, January 6th, or even permissive hair sniffing for jobs, etc, etc etc. God knows just what the secretly implanted “Trigger Word” has been planted inside her own scattered brain, programmed to set her off in a 15 minutes of fame shooting of a Trump, or even Joe if he finally graduates to “Useful Idiot” Status. We never had these problems of violence or racial division until Obama and his Veep rose to power? There must be a creative guiding hand to the confusion and outright violence.
If Willie Brown’s ex girlfriend really wants to reduce violent crimes then I have a much better idea than banning guns. Instead of banning guns we need to ban liberals instead. Violent crime would be cut in half almost overnight.
AND ban gun free zones!
Whenever anyone brings up “the assault weapons ban that was enacted under former President Bill Clinton and was in effect between 1994 and 2004”, the only salient point to remember is that its sole success was in infringing on the People’s Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
AMEN to that! There were plenty a mass school shootings under Clinton, one even in Arkansas, and there was NEVER one that used “assault weapons.” Shows that if someone is determined to kill people, they will always find a way no matter what kind of weapons are illegal.
Plus all the gang on gang shootings through out the nation…