Nobody needs to tell the people of Highland Park that AR-15-type assault-style rifles, in the wrong hands, are a threat to civil society.
Highland Park residents have attended the funerals of seven people who were killed by a rooftop shooter at last year’s Independence Day parade. Some have paid hospital visits to the wounded. Others have followed the progress of the children injured or the boy who was orphaned.
Many joined the respectful march down Central Avenue on July 4 this week. And they did so knowing that Illinois’ effort to ban the sale of assault-style rifles and large ammunition magazines — passed in the aftermath of the shooting — is caught in legal limbo.
Multiple lawsuits are challenging the constitutional standing of the law, but the U.S. Supreme Court is allowing the law to remain in effect while the challenges work their way through the lower state and federal courts. With the assault weapon restrictions caught up in the courts, second-order responses to the scourge of gun violence in Illinois have taken on added importance.
