Guest columnist Ashbey Beasley: Within days, Illinois can act to protect against gun violence

Six months ago this week, on July 4, 2022, I had just wrestled my 6-year-old son into an oversized tee shirt emblazoned with a cheerful sun and big block letters spelling out Bob Morgan on it when gunfire rang out. I should have grabbed his hand and ran south. Instead, we ran west toward our home and straight into a giant wave of people propelled by terror and fear.

Their screams and shouts were confusing. Was the shooter behind us? Were we running for our lives? "What's happening?!" my son cried over and over.

Suddenly my arm pulled me down. My son had become so paralyzed with fear that he lay on the ground begging not to die. I got down with him and convinced him to keep going right as my husband pulled up in the car and whisked us safely home.

Seven people were murdered that day in Highland Park, gunned down by a man who opened fire on our hometown Independence Day parade with an AR-15 style weapon. In less than 50 seconds, he shot off 83 rounds that ripped through glass, concrete, bricks, flesh and bone.

In December, state Rep. Bob Morgan, a Deerfield Democrat, introduced the Protect Illinois Communities Act, HB5855. A comprehensive gun safety package that would ban assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines, increase the FOID eligibility age from 18 to 21, create an Illinois state anti-gun trafficking strike force and remove firearms from dangerous individuals.

Public hearings for the bill were swarmed by suburban moms clad in unmistakable bright red "Moms Demand Action" T-shirts. They easily dwarfed the handful of pro-gun advocates who failed to fill even one row of seats in the tightly packed audience.

It was clear: The grass-roots effort to push HB5855 over the finish line and into law had exploded into an "all hands on deck" fight that was driven by moms. Moms like me who were angry and unwilling to live in fear any longer.

Representatives from the NRA and other pro-gun groups testified that HB5855 infringes on the Second Amendment, but their memories are short. In 1985, a Republican with the blessing of the NRA, sponsored and passed the Firearm Owners Protection act that effectively banned the future sale and purchase of new machine guns to the public. It's held up to Second Amendment scrutiny for nearly 40 years. A similar federal ban on assault-style weapons also held up to scrutiny for a decade until the bill sunsetted in 2004.

Gun advocates believe that bans don't work. But the data shows they do. During the assault weapon ban from 1994-2004, you were 70% less likely to be killed in a mass shooting. After the bill expired, mass shootings went up over 200%.

Opponents of HB5855 blame mass shootings on criminals. But the Highland Park shooter who killed Eduardo Uvaldo and six others and left an 8-year-old boy paralyzed and another an orphan had no criminal record when he legally bought his assault weapon. Statistically we know mass shootings are carried out with legally purchased assault weapons.

Opponents of HB5855 say the Highland Park ban didn't work. That is also not true. The shooter at the Highland Park parade where my son and I ran for our lives was able to legally purchase his weapon because he lived in the neighboring town of Highwood, less than two miles from the spot where he changed my life and many others forever. In fact, this just proves that a statewide ban is absolutely necessary.

It's possible that HB5855 might have saved lives on July 4 under the removing firearms from dangerous people provision. While the shooter had no criminal record, before the shooting, he had threatened to kill his family and was known by the police.

At one point in the hearings, a witness opposed to the bill expressed frustration that the shooting in Highland Park had sparked the urgency to pass this gun safety legislation while ignoring gun violence problems in Chicago. But again they're wrong. One of the most exciting parts of HB5855 is the creation of an anti-gun trafficking strike force that will work to end gun trafficking. This is imperative to combat gun violence in Chicago, where 60% of gun crimes are committed with trafficked weapons.

Gun violence has become a public health crisis. Not only is it the No. 1 killer of a children and teens, but it affects every single community in this country and in our great state.

We don't have to live this way. We can take this huge step in stopping the cycle of gun violence in Illinois and in just days we can ban assault weapons. It's finally within our reach.

• Ashbey Beasley is a proud Indigenous wife and mother from Highland Park, a serial entrepreneur and a mass shooting survivor turned activist.