(HUMAN EVENTS) — It took a tragedy on America’s birthday, and the death of seven people, to demonstrate once and for all that gun control doesn’t work. Shooter Bobby Crimo bought the murder weapon himself, legally, in Illinois, a state with some of the strongest gun control laws in the country. Red flag laws didn’t stop him. There’s no reason to think they would work anywhere else.
What’s more, the city of Highland Park passed a total ban on assault rifles in 2013. Around the time, Mayor Nancy Rotering bragged: “Banning assault weapons … is one common-sense action to reduce gun violence and protect our children and our communities from potential mass violence and grief.”
It turned out Republicans against gun control were right all along. On July 4, Highland Park’s residents came to know the terror, carnage, and grief that come with living in a “gun-free zone,” areas better described as killing fields. No one can deny it anymore. Gun control comes with a body count. It makes everyone less safe.
Curbing Second Amendment rights won’t stop these shootings. But I know what will. As I reviewed photographs of the cross-dressing killer, who called himself “Awake the rapper,” and as I read about his life and upbringing, Highland Park took on another meaning.
