'This is the norm in our country': Highland Park Mayor speaks to Senate committee about gun violence

CHICAGO (CBS)-- Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering testified on Capitol Hill Wednesday morning, demanding a federal ban on assault weapons.

It comes about two weeks after the deadly July 4th parade shooting.

Rotering said it's a day that will haunt her forever. She described the moments she wondered why the band was only playing a drum cadence, only to find out later it was the beat of gunfire from an assault rifle.

"Less than a minute is all it took for a person with an assault weapon to shoot 83 rounds into a crowd, forever changing so many lives," She said. "The most disturbing part, is this is the norm in our country."

Illinois senators Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth spoke at the hearing for the 309th mass shooting this year. They read the names of all the victims..

They brought up 2-year-old Aiden McCarthy, and how his parents used their bodies to shield him after they had been shot. Duckworth described how the toddler was found in his father's blood. 

She said no one was looking for him because both his parents were dead. 

The officials went to into graphic detail of what these bullets do to the body. How a bullet shredded the inside of 8-year-old Cooper Roberts, who is now clinging to life after seven surgeries, including one to his esophagus.

Mayor Rotering described how the gruesome effect of an assault rifle on a body, even shaped the way victims were laid to rest.

"The impact of the gunfire on their (victim's family) grandfather required a closed casket," She said. "Sitting with him at the parade, they experienced first hand the gory effect that this ammunition, with this velocity, has when hitting a human head. 

 Rotering noted that while Highland Park was the 309th mass shooting this year, that number has already been raised to over 350.