The shooting also raised questions about what proposed policies or existing law could have prevented this latest high-profile incident of gun violence.
Robert “Bobby” E. Crimo III, 21, faces seven counts of first-degree murder in connection with the shooting, which authorities said he allegedly carried out by climbing onto the roof of a nearby business and opening fire minutes after it began parade. sending marchers and participants running for safety. State police confirmed Tuesday that Crimo passed four background checks between June 2020 and September 2021 when purchasing firearms, which included federal National Instant Criminal Background Checks.
Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that she is “looking forward to an explanation” of how Crimo was able to obtain weapons.
“We know that in other countries people suffer from mental illness, they suffer from anger, maybe they play violent video games, but they can’t get their hands on these weapons of war and they can’t get their hands on this kind of carnage. homelands,” Rotering said. “This has to stop”.
A gun was legally used, officials say
Crimo is believed by authorities to have been planning the attack for weeks, and the rifle he used and another he allegedly had when he was arrested by police appear to have been purchased legally in Illinois, said Lake County Major Crime Task Force spokesman Chris Covelli. Other weapons were recovered from his home in nearby Highwood. To buy guns in Illinois, people need a Firearm Owner Identification Card (FOID). Crimo was under 21, so his father sponsored him, state police said. Crimo’s application was not denied because there was “insufficient basis to establish a clear and present danger” at the time, according to officials. The only offense included in Crimo’s history was a January 2016 ordinance violation for possession of tobacco, police said, which occurred when he was a juvenile. Gun laws in the United States have generally been “written to facilitate commerce as much as to protect public safety,” Daniel Webster, co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Solutions to Gun Violence, said in an interview. “Our laws tend to default to ‘let’s get a gun,’ as opposed to ‘let’s have a consultation process’ before you get a lethal weapon.”
How Federal Background Checks Work
Under the existing background check system, federal gun dealers must run background checks on every buyer. Buyers can then be disqualified from purchasing a firearm due to various factors, including criminal history, such as a felony conviction or a finding that a person poses a threat to themselves or others due to a mental condition. . A buyer attempting to purchase a firearm from a federal dealer must present the seller with a government-issued ID and fill out a form designed to check for any disqualification factors that would legally prohibit the person from purchasing or possess a firearm. The seller usually submits the information to the FBI so the agency can check the applicant’s information against databases. The process can take just a few minutes.
Changes implemented by new bipartisan gun legislation
Congress recently passed legislation known as the Bipartisan Safe Communities Act, which amounts to the first major federal gun safety legislation in decades. The bill, which has been signed into law by President Joe Biden, makes major changes to gun policy in the United States, including provisions that will affect firearms sales. In a key change, the bill requires people who sell firearms for profit — who have previously avoided registering as federally licensed firearms dealers — to be licensed. “There are people who are selling a lot of guns and they’re doing it privately, without a seller’s license and it’s clear that they’re doing it for a profit … which will give the (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) the ability to prosecute people who sell a lot of unlicensed guns and it will force more of those people to get a license and therefore have to complete background checks for any gun sale,” said Webster of the Center for Gun Violence Solutions. “That’s really important because we’re talking about a fairly large number of guns that are now going to be subject to background checks or just not going to be sold.” This bill also closes a loophole in domestic violence laws — the so-called boyfriend loophole — that barred people convicted of domestic violence crimes against spouses, partners with whom they have children, or partners with whom they lived together from owning guns . The old statute did not include intimate partners who may not live together, be married, or have children. Now the law will prohibit anyone convicted of a domestic violence crime against someone they have an “ongoing serious relationship of a romantic or intimate nature” from owning a gun. In addition, the bill encourages states to include juvenile records in the National Direct Criminal Background Check System with grants, as well as implements a new protocol for checking those records.
How the vetting process for arms purchases could be stronger
Despite the implementation of the new bipartisan law, there are still ways buyers can slip through the cracks of the existing system and ways the federal system could be made more comprehensive. Under current law, for example, there is essentially a 72-hour window to conduct a background check. When that time period expires, an authorized dealer can complete a sale even if the FBI has not yet completed a background check. “To me, I think this is a huge problem and a lot of people were hoping they would fix it,” Webster said. Additionally, while some states have implemented a licensing requirement for gun buyers, there is no corresponding federal licensing mandate for buyers, which could create a more stringent vetting process for law enforcement, as opposed to sellers. weapons. “What we found in our research is that while comprehensive background checks are good and necessary for the system to work, to really have more impact from your regulatory process, you need a licensing system,” Webster said. “We find that the licensing system is much more effective at reducing homicides, suicides, mass shootings, and even law enforcement officer-involved shootings. It also prevents human trafficking.” Webster added, “We’re really the only high-income Western democracy that doesn’t have a licensing system for firearms buyers — only the United States.” CNN’s Travis Caldwell, Jason Hanna, Dakin Andone and Aaron Smith contributed.
