Chicago Alderman: ‘Uncivilized’ Debates about Guns Miss ‘Main Point’ That We Don’t Act on Clear Warnings Like in Highland Park

On Tuesday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “The Story,” Chicago Alderman and mayoral candidate Raymond Lopez stated that with the Highland Park shooting, “all of the warning signs were there. We just failed to put the pieces together.” And “Too often, we get into uncivilized arguments about gun ownership and we’re missing the main point that oftentimes, all of the keys that we need to recognize what’s going to happen are right there in front of us and we don’t act on them.”

Lopez stated, “And to know that someone meticulously planned out this event to every detail, even planning on bringing a spare change of clothes so that they can run through the crowd that they had just fired upon to escape tells you that there is something wrong with our youth and young adults today, whether it’s a mass shooting at a singular event or a slow, steady weekend worth of carnage as we so often see in the city of Chicago, where, this weekend alone, 68 people have been shot, 12 have been killed. We are failing our youth. We are not recognizing the mental health crisis that so many of our young people are dealing with and are boasting about on social media, not realizing it until it’s too late, until they’ve done something drastic as we saw in Highland Park this weekend.”

He added, “I think we need to help educate parents and [the] community at large to know what the warning signs are for individuals who are having some sort of mental health crisis and who are in distress. As we see after following some of the posts by the shooter this weekend, all of the warning signs were there. We just failed to put the pieces together. And whether that’s a local issue or if we need the federal government to start regulating the Internet better, to have a better watchdog in place and reporting mechanisms in place, that’s something we need to incorporate in the conversation. Too often, we get into uncivilized arguments about gun ownership and we’re missing the main point that oftentimes, all of the keys that we need to recognize what’s going to happen are right there in front of us and we don’t act on them.”

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