Dem Rep. Schneider on July 4 Shooting: ‘Congress Needs to Take Action’ on Guns

Representative Brad Schneider (D-IL) said Monday on CNN’s “Newsroom” said “Congress needs to take action” on gun legislation in light of the shooting at the Highland Park’s Independence Day parade.

At least six people were killed, and approximately two dozen others were seriously injured.

Anchor Victor Blackwell asked, “Congressman, you say this is your community, quickly, if you would, tell us about Highland Park.”

Schneider said, “Highland Park is a community, one of the northern suburbs of Chicago. It’s a tight-knit community. This parade today, every year, thousands of people gather to celebrate, stand shoulder to shoulder honoring our nation’s birthday and just being a part of the parade. There are floats from the high school bands, the library, the whole community comes together. It’s like communities all across the country that were celebrating the Fourth of July. The fact that an individual, it’s been described as a young male, has decided to take a gun, what is said to be an assault weapon and literally destroy the heart of our community. The people who were killed, the families, they will never recover. They will carry the pains of their loss with them across generations. The people who are wounded will carry those injuries with them the rest of their lives. The entire community, we will come together. It’s a strong community, we will find strength in the support of each other, but it’s going to take a while to recover and heal.”

He added, “Like so many other communities around the nation who are suffering from gun violence, we need help, and Congress needs to take action, whether it’s universal backgrounds, things that 90% of the country supports, universal background checks, making trafficking of guns across state lines illegal. Straightforward things we can do that can respect the Second Amendment but also keep our kids, our schools, our theaters, our communities safer, we need to act, and we need to act soon.”

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