1 dead, at least 22 hurt in a shooting at a Juneteenth celebration in Willowbrook, Illinois, police say

[ThatRobGuy]

https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/18/us/illinois-juneteenth-shooting/index.html

A large group of people gathered for the celebration from around 6 p.m. on Saturday, and police were at the site to monitor the event, the sheriff’s office said.

The officers were called away around 12:25 a.m. to respond to a 911 call reporting a fight nearby.

“As deputies responded, they heard gunshots and immediately returned to the scene of the gathering,” the sheriff’s office said.

Witnesses said the parking lot was still filled with people when the sound of gunshots rang out and the scene turned chaotic. Some people started running.

After the 2022 shooting at a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, less than 40 miles from Willowbrook, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signed into law a ban on assault-style rifles and high-capacity magazines in the state.

“This shooting shows that even states with strong gun laws like Illinois are not immune from gun violence due to our incredibly weak federal laws and weak laws in neighboring states.” Kris Brown, president of Brady, the country’s oldest gun violence prevention organization, said in a statement.




While I would agree that with each passing shooting like this, it highlights more and more why we need to button up some gun control laws, clearly this sort of thing doesn't happen in other developed nations with the frequency that it happens here. But with regards to Illinois (and the Chicago area in particular), I think they're missing the mark a bit when they trot out the old trope of blaming Indiana's weak gun laws for all of their problems.

While they're partially right in that a neighboring locale where it's easy to get a gun can introduce some new guns into the hands of people who shouldn't have them in their own locale, there's still some underlying cultural aspects that they're deflecting from by trying to pin the blame there.

The situation of "we have strict gun laws, but a neighboring state that's an easy drive to doesn't" is by no means a situation that's unique to Illinois/Chicago, yet they seem to be the only ones who try to deflect from their own internal city management problems by citing it.

For instance, New Jersey has some of the strictest gun laws in the country, they still have some high violent crime rates in certain cities...I don't hear New Jersey officials regularly blaming their internal issues on the more lax gun laws that exist in Delaware and PA...nor do I hear California blaming the crime rates in the southeastern part of the state on the fact that it's a close drive to Yuma, AZ where it's much more permissive.


I think this problem needs to be approached from both sides. While I'd agree that Indiana's weaker gun laws certainly don't help matters in Chicago (and the surrounding areas), I don't think that Indiana implementing strict gun laws would solve most of their problems either.

 

[USincognito]

If you're killing each other at a celebration of freedom, you're doing it wrong.

 

[Pommer]

https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/18/us/illinois-juneteenth-shooting/index.html

A large group of people gathered for the celebration from around 6 p.m. on Saturday, and police were at the site to monitor the event, the sheriff’s office said.

The officers were called away around 12:25 a.m. to respond to a 911 call reporting a fight nearby.

“As deputies responded, they heard gunshots and immediately returned to the scene of the gathering,” the sheriff’s office said.

Witnesses said the parking lot was still filled with people when the sound of gunshots rang out and the scene turned chaotic. Some people started running.

After the 2022 shooting at a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, less than 40 miles from Willowbrook, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signed into law a ban on assault-style rifles and high-capacity magazines in the state.

“This shooting shows that even states with strong gun laws like Illinois are not immune from gun violence due to our incredibly weak federal laws and weak laws in neighboring states.” Kris Brown, president of Brady, the country’s oldest gun violence prevention organization, said in a statement.




While I would agree that with each passing shooting like this, it highlights more and more why we need to button up some gun control laws, clearly this sort of thing doesn't happen in other developed nations with the frequency that it happens here. But with regards to Illinois (and the Chicago area in particular), I think they're missing the mark a bit when they trot out the old trope of blaming Indiana's weak gun laws for all of their problems.

While they're partially right in that a neighboring locale where it's easy to get a gun can introduce some new guns into the hands of people who shouldn't have them in their own locale, there's still some underlying cultural aspects that they're deflecting from by trying to pin the blame there.

The situation of "we have strict gun laws, but a neighboring state that's an easy drive to doesn't" is by no means a situation that's unique to Illinois/Chicago, yet they seem to be the only ones who try to deflect from their own internal city management problems by citing it.

For instance, New Jersey has some of the strictest gun laws in the country, they still have some high violent crime rates in certain cities...I don't hear New Jersey officials regularly blaming their internal issues on the more lax gun laws that exist in Delaware and PA...nor do I hear California blaming the crime rates in the southeastern part of the state on the fact that it's a close drive to Yuma, AZ where it's much more permissive.


I think this problem needs to be approached from both sides. While I'd agree that Indiana's weaker gun laws certainly don't help matters in Chicago (and the surrounding areas), I don't think that Indiana implementing strict gun laws would solve most of their problems either.

Odd that the shooting only started after police had left the vicinity.
Huh.

 

[USincognito]

For instance, New Jersey has some of the strictest gun laws in the country, they still have some high violent crime rates in certain cities...I don't hear New Jersey officials regularly blaming their internal issues on the more lax gun laws that exist in Delaware and PA...nor do I hear California blaming the crime rates in the southeastern part of the state on the fact that it's a close drive to Yuma, AZ where it's much more permissive.

Point of information: the majority, though not a vast one, of gun crime in Chicago happens with guns purchased in suburban Cook County. It's also worth noting that Indiana and Wisconsin are significantly closer to Chicago than Arizona is to LA and a lot closer than Arizona is to San Francisco.

That's not to poopoo the seriously messed up gun violence problem in Chicago, the case can be made that proximity to lax gun availability in geographically proximate locations is more of an issue for Chicago than it is for L.A. or Bayonne.

 

[Larniavc]

underlying cultural aspects that they're deflecting from by trying to pin the blame there.

I actually agree with this. The American milieux of individuals being armed, violent society, making decisions based on emotion, self entitlement, poverty, poor education, poor physical and mental health provision and over reliance on external authoritarianism really needs to be addressed.

 

[Larniavc]

If you're killing each other at a celebration of freedom, you're doing it wrong.

Silly goose! It simply shows how people are willing to die for freedom.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Point of information: the majority, though not a vast one, of gun crime in Chicago happens with guns purchased in suburban Cook County. It's also worth noting that Indiana and Wisconsin are significantly closer to Chicago than Arizona is to LA and a lot closer than Arizona is to San Francisco.

That's not to poopoo the seriously messed up gun violence problem in Chicago, the case can be made that proximity to lax gun availability in geographically proximate locations is more of an issue for Chicago than it is for L.A. or Bayonne.

One of the other examples I cited was New Jersey... Camden is a "not so great city" (right across the river from Philly), and PA is far more lax on guns than their NJ counterpart.

Chicago has been somewhat fostering a criminal environment for a while and then trying to look for scapegoats.

The idea that instead of deterring crime "let's just make it so that you can't actually get into the Walgreens, and you have to use a kiosk out front and an employee will go back and grab what you ordered" is telling and sad at the same time.

 

[Landon Caeli]

Anyone who celebrates a holiday in a strip-mall parking lot, is kind of a weird person to begin with.

 

[RDKirk]

Anyone who celebrates a holiday in a strip-mall parking lot, is kind of a weird person to begin with.

Most likely, one or several of the mall merchants sponsored the celebration.

 

[RDKirk]

This is a culture issue. I own a number of guns. They did not entice me to out to shoot at anyone.