Back to prayers. A 22-year-old man killed at least six people and hospitalized another 40 when he shot Fourth of July paradegoers in Highland Park, a Chicago suburb. Those opposed to any gun safety laws will cry “mental illness,” but this is the kind of war that conservatives have promised since Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) legitimately lost the 2020 presidential election. In another mass shooting, five people were injured in a shooting on Chicago’s South Side. As of early Monday morning, at least 57 people had been shot in Chicago over the Fourth of July weekend, nine of them fatally, not including the Highland Park shooting. Two other mass shootings on the Fourth of July Kansas City (MO) and Richmond (VA). Others over the weekend were in over the weekend in Mullins (SC), Tacoma (WA), Clinton (NC), Haltom City (TX), and New York City bringing the total for the first 155 days in 2022 to 309.
Others will blame Chicago for all the guns it has, yet Illinois has the ninth-lowest rate of gun ownership and the sixth-strongest gun safety laws in the country, including a background checks on all gun sales, an Extreme Risk (“red flag”) law, and removal of guns from domestic abusers, and ninth-lowest rate of gun ownership. Illinois also has these laws:
- Permits required for concealed carry in public with denial authority for people who pose a danger.
- Ban on open carry in public without permits.
- No “stand your ground law,” allowing anyone to kill someone else with impunity in other states.
- Mandates for locked storage of unloaded guns, separate from ammunition in some circumstances.
- Prohibition of assault-style weapons originally designed for military use.
- Childproofing features required for all new handgun models.
- Ban on high-capacity gun magazines.
- Microstamping for new handguns.
- Mandatory tracing of all guns recovered at crime scenes, using the federal tracing system.
- Prevention of concealed carry permits for people with assault or other violent misdemeanor convictions.
- Prevention of gun possession by felons, fugitives, convicted stalkers, and those with hate crime convictions.
- Requirement for school threat assessment programs to identify students at risk of violence.
- Permission for towns and cities to make stronger gun safety ordinances.
- Prevention of gun sales during ongoing background checks.
- Requirement that all gun owners report lost and/or stolen guns.
- Mandated notice to law enforcement when prohibited people try to purchase guns.
- Mandates of all gun buyers to complete a training course before purchases.
- Requirement of prescribed time for gun owners before completing purchases.
Because of no federal laws and permissive Supreme Court rulings, the surrounding states with much weaker laws permit guns trafficked across the border, especially from Indiana across the Chicago border. At least 60 percent of guns recovered in Chicago are from out of state. Even enlisted U.S. Army soldiers help gangs funnel guns into Chicago to worsen the violence within the city. Although 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse was from Antioch, Illinois when he traveled 21 miles to kill two men in a Kenosha (WI) protest, the 20-year-old who illegally gave Rittenhouse the gun purchased it in Wisconsin.
As expected, many guns come from neighboring Wisconsin and Indiana, but a major contributor to Illinois’ gun problem is Mississippi, ranking fifth among source states. Of 5,782 guns recovered at Illinois crimes scenes in 2019, 1,882 came from Indiana, 485 from Missouri, 460 from Wisconsin, and 302 from Mississippi. No laws in Mississippi require permits to purchase, carry, or register firearms—rifles, shotguns, and handguns. Licensing of owners aren’t covered by any Mississippi laws.
Weeks ago, Congress passed the first “gun reform” law since banning assault weapons in 1994. These are the provisions:
Funding for crisis interventions programs, including red flag programs allowing the courts to remove firearms from people who may use them to endanger themselves or others. Originally, the money went only to states willing to incorporate red flag programs, but the final version gives money to all states, including those who reject these programs. [Red: states with red flag laws; teal: states prohibing red flag laws.]
Barring people convicted of domestic violence crimes against former cohabiting partners or those they share children with from having guns. Although the law lists a “serious relationship,” the provision isn’t retroactive, but it doesn’t include dating violence or stalkers. Those convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence crimes can get their guns back after five years if they don’t commit any other crimes. There is no research supporting the length of five years.
Gun sellers who use the sale of guns for a primary source of income must register as Federally Licensed Firearm Dealers, requiring background checks. No background checks are required from any other ways of obtaining guns.
States are “encouraged” to include juvenile records in the National Instant Criminal Background Check system and implement ways of checking these records for people ages 18-21, but there is no requirement for this provision.
Law enforcement can more easily investigate guy buyers not allowed to purchase firearms on their own.
Funding for mental health programs and school security will be increased.
And states, with the reinforcement of the Supreme Court, will continue to put guns into the pipeline for killing, and conservative legislatures can reassure their constituents that they will be able to secretly buy guns and give them to killers.
The freedom for unfettered gun ownership is just way that conservatives try to identify themselves as patriots, a term now largely co-opted by white nationalists. Pledging allegiance to the flag has always been a strategy by people intent on destroying democracy. Confederates, segregationists, white supremacists, conspiracy theorists, obstructionists call themselves patriots while demonizing a large percentage of people in the United States and calling on “liberty and justice” for only themselves.
At this turning point of history in the nation, Robert Reich ponders “the true meaning of patriotism.”
“It is not the meaning propounded by the “America first” crowd, who see the patriotic challenge as securing our borders.
“For most of its existence America has been open to people from the rest of the world fleeing tyranny and violence.
“Nor is the meaning of patriotism found in the ravings of those who want America to be a white Christian nation.
“America’s moral mission has been greater inclusion – equal citizenship for Native Americans, Black people, women and LGBTQ+ people.
“True patriots don’t fuel racist, religious or ethnic divisions. Patriots aren’t homophobic or sexist. Patriots seek to confirm and strengthen and celebrate the ‘we’ in ‘we the people of the United States.’
“Patriots are not blind to social injustices. They don’t ban books or prevent teaching about the sins of our past.
“They combine a loving devotion to America with a demand for justice.
“This land is your land, this land is my land, Woody Guthrie sang.
“Langston Hughes pleaded:
“’Let America be America again,
“’The land that never has been yet –
“’And yet must be – the land where every man is free.
“’The land that’s mine – the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME –.’
“Nor is the meaning of patriotism found in symbolic displays of loyalty like standing for the national anthem and waving the American flag.
“Its true meaning is in taking a fair share of the burdens of keeping the nation going – sacrificing for the common good. Paying taxes in full rather than lobbying for lower taxes, seeking tax loopholes or squirreling away money abroad.
“It means refraining from political contributions that corrupt our politics, and blowing the whistle on abuses of power even at the risk of losing one’s job.
“It means volunteering time and energy to improve the community and country.
“Real patriotism involves strengthening our democracy – defending the right to vote and ensuring more Americans are heard. It is not claiming without evidence that millions of people voted fraudulently.
“It is not pushing for laws that make it harder for people to vote based on this “big lie”. It is not using the big lie to run for office.
“True patriots don’t put loyalty to their political party above their love of America.
“True patriots don’t support an attempted coup. They expose it – even when it was engineered by people they once worked for, even if it’s a president who headed their own party.
“When serving in public office, true patriots don’t try to hold on to power after voters have chosen not to re-elect them. They don’t make money off their offices.
“When serving as judges, they recuse themselves from cases where they may appear to have a conflict of interest. When serving in the Senate, they don’t use the filibuster to stop all legislation with which they disagree.
“When serving on the supreme court, they don’t disregard precedent to impose their ideology.
“Patriots understand that when they serve the public, one of their major responsibilities is to maintain and build public trust in the offices and institutions they occupy.
“America is in trouble. But that’s not because too many foreigners are crossing our borders, or we’re losing our whiteness or our dominant religion, or we’re not standing for the national anthem, or because of voter fraud.
“We’re in trouble because we are losing the true understanding of what patriotism requires from all of us.”
May the United States have a democracy on the Fourth of July 2023.