After an Independence Day marred by violence, including a mass shooting in Highland Park, Ill., that claimed several lives and injured dozens, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker has decided he has had enough of the National Rifle Association.
After the NRA posted a tweet the day after the shooting that claimed “since 1950, 94% of mass public shootings occurred in gun-free zones,” Pritzker snapped back.
“And 100% of mass public shootings happen with guns,” he said.
“As Governor, and on behalf of the people of Highland Park – leave us the hell alone.”
In its tweet, the NRA cited research released May 29 by the Crime Prevention Research Center.
The RAND Corporation non-profit think tank explained that there some challenges related to analyzing how effective “gun free zones,” or areas where laws prohibit guns and measures such as screening checks can be implemented to keep firearms away.
One issue is “debate over the extent to which perpetrators target gun-free zones,” said RAND. Additionally, the lack of a nationwide database of gun free zones makes research difficult. The non-profit said it could not find reliable data that proved the zones increased or decreased various violence outcomes.
Shortly before 21-year-old Robert Crimo III opened fire from a building on Highland Park parade-goers, the NRA tweeted “we are a country because of brave souls with guns who valued and fought for liberty and freedom.”
Later, the association retweeted Students for Trump founder Ryan Fournier, who said the NRA “is once again the only organization in America that gets blamed for crimes their members never commit.”
This is not the first time that the NRA and Illinois have clashed.
Earlier this year, Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz during an NRA annual meeting used Chicago, Ill., as an example of why “gun bans do not work.”
“Look at Chicago. If they worked, Chicago wouldn’t be the murder hellhole that it has been for far too long,” he said.
However, an Associated Press fact check found that Cruz was wrong, as Chicago’s handgun ban was axed over a decade ago. In fact, the NRA sued Chicago over the ban and argued the case before the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled it unconstitutional in 2010.
While conservative politicians and pundits, including FOX News host Tucker Carlson, use Chicago as an example of a “dangerous,” crime-riddled area, statistics from the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention show that Illinois doesn’t rank in the top 10 states for homicide or firearm mortality rates. Cruz’s state, Texas, ranks higher on the firearm mortality list.
Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a New York state law that required applicants for a license to carry a gun outside of their homes to have a “proper cause” to do so.
“With children dying and with mass shootings every day, I’m extremely frustrated that the Supreme Court would take away a common-sense tool to protect people from gun violence,” said Pritzker the day the Supreme Court opinion was delivered.
Applicants for a Firearm Owners Identification Card in Illinois must meet a list of criteria. Even this precaution was not enough to prevent Crimo’s rampage. WBBM reported that at least one firearm owned by Crimo was legally picked up at a Chicago-area store.
Illinois State Police Director Brendan Kelly said that although Highland Park police were called in 2019 about a possible suicide attempt by Robert Crimo III and that a family member told police later that year that Crimo had threatened to kill people in his home, he was still able to obtain a firearm.
“There was no new information to establish a clear and present danger; no arrests; no criminal records; no mental-health prohibitors; no orders of protection and no other disqualifying prohibitors,” Kelly said.
“So, the available evidence would have been insufficient.”
Following the July 4 shooting, Pritzker said in a speech that he did not believe the founding fathers would believe Americans had a constitutional right to “an assault weapon with a high capacity magazine,” such as the one used by Crimo, as well as many other mass shooters, “or that that is more important than the right of the people who attended this parade to live.”
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