Calls for changes to gun laws came within hours of Highland Park mass shooting
HIGHLAND PARK, Ill. (CBS) -- Within hours of the mass shooting at the July 4th parade in Highland Park last year, new seeds of change were planted with survivors, residents, and lawmakers.
Over the last year, those seeds of change have sprouted into measurable transformations at the state level.
As CBS 2 Investigator Megan Hickey reported Friday, the Illinois assault weapons ban was the most notable and most controversial change spurred by the mass shooting. But there have been other updates, and there will likely be more to come.
Lauren Bennett attended the parade with her husband, two youngest sons, parents, and in-laws.
"They sounded like fireworks, but they sounded very close," Bennett said. "I felt something sharp and precise in the lower half of my body – around my hip and lower back - and I looked down and I was bleeding profusely."
Bennett was shot twice.
A few blocks away, Illinois state Rep. Bob Morgan (D-Highwood) was at the parade with his wife and two little kids.
"And so it took a while for my brain to process what was happening, but my children were right behind me," Morgan said. "So as soon as that happened, I immediately reach behind me to make sure I could feel them."
Both Bennett and Morgan said within moments of the shooting, they were looking forward.
"You assume that this is it. It's over. But then something kind of sparked inside of me and I said no, this is not how I'm going out," Bennett said. "Why am I here? How did this happen? Who is responsible?"
We had the same questions.
And the first major change came just two weeks after the shooting. Illinois State Police changed the way officers would be able to consider historic "clear and present danger" filings from law enforcement when reviewing future FOID applications.
Then in September, Highland Park survivors like Bennett took it a step further, filing multiple lawsuits accusing the gun manufacturer, Smith & Wesson, distributor, retailer, the alleged shooter, and his father of responsibility for the massacre.
"The shooter was a shill for Smith & Wesson's marketing and advertising policy," attorney Antonio Romanucci, of Romanucci & Blandin LLC, said in announcing the lawsuit in September.
The plaintiffs also claim that Bud's Gun Shop and Red Dot Arms allowed the gunman to obtain his weapons - despite a ban on such guns in Highland Park and Highwood.
"I felt it was important; it was necessary to call for full accountability for the marketing, the distributing, the selling of that type of weapon to that type of person," Bennett said.
That litigation is ongoing.
The change that took the longest amount of time - and is still being challenged in court – was the statewide assault weapons ban.
The gunman in this case used an AR-15-style weapon, firing 83 rounds in less than a minute.
Rep. Morgan: "It wasn't really a choice, because that's what everybody wanted to see – that no other community would go through what they were going through."
Hickey: "Wow. So that day, this conversation started happening."
Rep. Morgan: "That's right."
Rep. Bob Morgan, accompanied by other local leaders and busloads of Illinois residents - many from Highland Park - began to rally in support of a bill that would ban assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines.
On Jan. 10, Gov. JB Pritzker signed the Protect Illinois Communities Act into law. It was met — almost immediately — with lawsuits at the state and federal level.
"I heard from a lot of people that really believe this was just a pure right being taken from the,. And it also led to some direct threats - against me, against my family. We got some direct death threats to the office and to my home," said Rep. Morgan, "and in some ways, I looked at that as an indication that what we were trying to do really mattered; that it was so real, and so pressing, that people really were reacting to it - positively and negatively."
Those battles are very much ongoing as the Highland Park community reaches the one-year mark of the tragedy.
Both Bennett and Rep. Morgan say they are proud of the work they have done so far - but they say it is just the beginning.
"I will show up," said Morgan, "and I feel a lot of people feel that way."
There are still issues on the horizon.
So what's next? Morgan and Bennett are both hoping to support increased red flag law education and strengthening gun storage laws in Illinois.
We will, of course, keep following that fight.
