Eighteen years ago, I was born in Highland Park Hospital. My parents tell me it was one of the most joyous days of their lives. Earlier this month, in the most harrowing day of mine, I watched the news numbly from my home as 25 people were rushed to that same building to be treated for gunshot wounds. My community had become the next host to the American illness that is gun violence.
I have lived in Deerfield — Highland Park’s slightly smaller neighbor — for my entire life. While the two towns have separate governments, park districts, and high schools, they are effectively a single community. I have marched with the Highland Park High School marching band (yes, the same one the news clips showed sprinting away from the carnage), attended camps at their park district, and campaigned on behalf of their mayor. Last summer, as my band played a music festival in Port Clinton Square, my parents proudly watched from the same spot at which the shooter took aim.
I have lived here long enough to know that Highland Park is as safe as any community can hope to be. Violent crime is virtually nonexistent — until July Fourth, there had been two murders in the past 20 years. The city has gun laws so strict, lawsuits filed against them were brought all the way to the Supreme Court. You can’t walk downtown for two minutes without seeing a police car.
And yet, as I watch my neighbors being interviewed on national television, I’m still struck each time they express shock at how our idyllic little suburb has become the target of a bloody massacre.
I’m horrified. I’m devastated. I’m furious. But I am not surprised.
I’ve always known that it could happen here. In fact, I’ve been preparing for it my entire life. I’ve done three active shooter drills every year since kindergarten and spent several lunch periods among friends comparing the top hiding spots in the school. I know the ALICE protocol by heart: Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate. When I enter a synagogue, I scan for the nearest exit sign before sitting down. Walking in the Chicago Pride Parade last weekend, I knew to be on high alert for open windows and suspicious attendees. Nearly every day, I alter my behavior in some way or another to lower my chances of being shot. And yet, even among all this, I’m still one of the few who is fortunate enough to live in a “safe” community.
The unfortunate and necessary truth is that no town is safe until every town is safe. The July Fourth shooter used what authorities have described as a “high powered AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle,” a model that is banned under Highland Park’s strict gun code. Still, the deadly weapon was bought both locally and legally. All the shooter had to do was travel to any nearby town with more relaxed regulations and purchase the weapon there.
A citywide ban is not enough. Even statewide action can only go so far. I will not feel truly safe again until the reform is sweeping and the scope is nationwide. Only then can this great national wound begin to heal, albeit with indelible scars marking the hundreds of thousands of Americans who have lost their lives to gun violence and the millions of others their deaths have affected. I know that I will bear the mark of this day for the rest of my life. That part is irreversible.
In these past few days, what I have found I crave the most is meaning. If these people with whom I share a home could not be saved — at least let their deaths stand for something.
Justice will come easy. The accused killer has been captured, charged, and jailed. The case against him appears to be strong, and there are no shortage of witnesses to the chaos that unfolded to testify against him.
But accountability will not be so swift. The stains of Highland Park’s blood are on far more hands than merely the one that pulled the trigger. Who will make the NRA and gun lobbyists answer for fighting back against changes that could have kept the gun out of the killer’s possession? Who will prosecute the Republicans in Congress who have made any attempt at a ban on national assault weapons unthinkable? Who will finally try the case in the court of public opinion that lays to rest our nation’s fetisization of a weapon that leaves children without parents, parents without children, and communities without a path forward?
I have hope that the recently signed Bipartisan Safer Communities Act — which includes $750 million for state crisis intervention programs, closes the “boyfriend loophole,” and improves state background check systems — will save lives. I know that the perpetrator of the Highland Park shooting, who was born and raised in my community, could have benefited from the greater access to mental health and violence interruption programs that this legislation will help fund. And, as more information is released about the killer’s violent past, it is clear that this was a case in which red flag laws, which this legislation now permits, could have been used. Regardless of its unfortunate timing and limited scope, any step in the right direction is a necessary one.
But my greater hope has come from seeing the people in my town come together to support each other at a time in which simply existing demands excruciating effort. Even as the bullets were flying, residents could be found scooping up abandoned children, shepherding fleeing parade goers into their nearby businesses, or, in one woman’s case, making PB&J’s and putting on Disney films for the many families sheltered in her basement. My former boss and mentor, the first person I frantically texted when I heard of the violence, drove the interns marching with her in the parade to her nearby home and heroically turned back again toward the chaos to shuttle away even more.
These people, my people, who have suffered the unspeakable and still vow to come back stronger, will be the reason I will continue to find hope on the Fourth of July. Each year, as you gaze up at majestic fireworks, gather with your friends and family at barbecues, and celebrate your hard-earned, American freedoms, think of us. Don’t hide behind platitudes and flags and patriotic songs. Until our nation’s children can go to school unguarded by armed officers, until a mentally unstable 21-year-old cannot obtain a weapon of mass murder, until my community can parade down our streets without fear, these hollow displays of American pride mean absolutely nothing.
True patriotism is a promise. It is a promise to not rest until we create a world without hate and fear and violence. It is a promise to acknowledge that freedom is only virtuous when it is used to create a collective good. It is a promise to consider the price that is paid when a perverted incarnation of liberty is valued above even life itself. Remember that promise. Remember Highland Park.
Image by Aaron Burden is licensed under the Unsplash License.
