As the first funerals are held for the victims of the Independence Day mass shooting near Chicago in Illinois, the mayor of the town where it happened, Highland Park, revealed her surprise at discovering the handbook’s existence. Image: Vice President Kamala Harris (L) with Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering (R) “No mayor is ever prepared for this [shooting] but there is a mayoral handbook for situations after mass shootings,” Mayor Nancy Rotering told Sky News. “A 198 page handbook now being sent to us in an attempt to help us, because so many have gone before us through this ridiculous tragedy. “And it makes me angry because there is no justification. There is no reason to have weapons of war on the streets of the United States.” Seven people were shot dead and 46 others wounded Monday morning when a 21-year-old local man, Robert E. Crimo III, opened fire from a rooftop at an Independence Day parade. All those who died have now been named. Katherine Goldstein was 64, Nicolas Toledo-Saragoza, 78, Eduardo Uvaldo, 69, Jacquelyn Sundheim, 63 and Steven Straus who was 88. Husband Irina and Kevin McCarthy attended the parade with their 2-year-old son. He survived unharmed but they both died. Image: Robert E. Crimo III faces seven counts of murder. Pic: Lake County Major Crime Task Force Crimo has been charged with seven counts of first-degree murder, and prosecutors are expected to file more charges for the more than 46 people injured in the attack. He bought his guns legally, even though knives were seized from him in 2019 and he was known to mental health officials. “The laws are not doing what they should be doing to protect American citizens,” Mayor Rotering tells Sky News. Countering the gun lobby’s argument that gun rights represent a basic American freedom protected by the Second Amendment, the mayor says, “It tells you that we need to have a national conversation about what freedom means. “We were there to celebrate freedom and in the end we were running for our lives. There is no reason to have these guns on our streets. It has nothing to do with freedom. It has to do with terror.” According to data compiled by the Gun Violence Archive, a shocking 220 people were killed in gun violence across America during the Fourth of July holiday last weekend, and 570 were injured. During the same four-day holiday, there were 11 incidents classified as mass shootings. Image: A police officer walks down Central Ave in Highland Park after the shooting Any shooting in which four or more people, excluding 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 her city is among the few trying to change gun laws from the bottom up rather than relying on states or the federal government to the imposition of prohibitions. “Our city passed an assault weapons ban in 2013 and a ban on high-capacity magazines through a bizarre permutation of the law. We are now working with the governor, Senate president, House speaker and legislators to allow other Illinois municipalities to ban guns. “We know that access is what’s causing this problem. Every other country in this world that has people who have mental health issues, who have anger issues, who play violent video games — they don’t have access to these guns. You have to talk about why we continue to allow access to these weapons of war.” Image: Abandoned chairs at the scene of a mass shooting at a Fourth of July parade on Central Avenue in Highland Park, Ill., Monday, July 4, 2022. (John Starks/Daily Herald via AP) At a memorial service for one of the victims, Jacquelyn Sundheim, Rabbi Wendi Geffen said: “We should not be here today. There is nothing – not one thing – that makes us grieving for Jacki acceptable. “We are horrified. We are enraged, sickened, saddened, inconsolable for the horror that found us and stole Jackie from us.” The service was broadcast live, and her daughter Jacquelyn Sundheim asked people to use their pain to make the world a better place. “Every day I want you 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 mom in it, and it’s over to us now to fill it with a little more laughter,” he said.
