WGN: ‘Protect kids, not guns’: Doctors urge lawmakers to pass assault weapons ban

WASHINGTON — The US House passed an assault weapons ban that is now sitting in front of the Senate. On Wednesday, doctors from all over the country, including one who attended the July 4 Highland Park Parade, continue their pleas to lawmakers to make a move.

Dr. Emily Lieberman attended the July Fourth Parade in Highland Park with her family and as gunshots erupted, she and her husband grabbed their children, ran into a store, and hid in a small bathroom with two dozen others. 

“We sat in darkness and silence for hours holding hands with people we never met before barricading our children beneath our adult bodies,” Lieberman said. “We were the lucky ones in the bathroom that day.” 

Lieberman was joined by other doctors with the March Fourth coalition, many of them trauma surgeons like Dr. Roy Guerrero, who treated children after the Uvalde, Texas shooting at Robb Elementary. 

“They didn’t have a chance,” Guerrero said. “They were lying down as the shooter came around and shot hundreds of rounds in a matter of minutes and riddled their bodies with bullets and left them unrecognizable to their parents.” 

The doctors declare mass shootings a public health crisis, calling on lawmakers to act, pointing out that firearm-related injuries are now the leading cause of death in children. 

“I’ll be honest with you, it’s hard in the closing days to take an issue of this controversy before Congress and get it into an important bill but we’re not going to give up trying,” said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois)

“We can break the grip of the [National Rifle Association]. We can stop the gun lobby. We can pass an assault weapons ban in America,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut).

President Joe Biden has also renewed a push to pass major gun reform before Republicans take control of the House next year. Joining in that push is Kitty Brandtner, the founder of ‘March Fourth,’ a group of suburban mothers who have called for a ban on assault weapons.

“When is enough, enough?” she said. “We’re saying now; enough is enough. Don’t tell us it’s hard to pass a ban, it’s not. Surviving a mass shooting, that’s difficult.”

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