Spotlight Politics: VP Harris, Gov. Pritzker, Darren Bailey React to Highland Park Shooting | Chicago News

In this week’s edition of Spotlight Politics: our team on Vice President Kamala Harris’s visit to Highland Park and whether gun laws will tighten.

Vice President Kamala Harris visited the site of the Highland Park 4th of July Parade mass shooting to meet with victims, first responders and local politicians.  

“We’ve got to be smarter as a country in terms of who has access to what, in particular assault weapons,” she told reporters and the crowd. “This could happen anywhere.”

Meanwhile, Gov. J.B. Pritzker took aim at the National Rifle Association.  Could his significant wealth make a dent against the gun lobby?  

Hours after the Highland Park mass shooting, Republican gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey said folks should ‘move on’ and ‘celebrate’ Independence Day which he has since apologized for saying.  Could this hurt him or haunt him in November?

And Mayor Lori Lightfoot said city officials are tweaking public safety plans and in the wake of the Highland Park parade shooting. 

“In the aftermath of what happened in Highland Park and also in Philadelphia the other night, I’ve asked my team — meaning writ large, CPD, CFD, OEMC and others — to look at what happened in each of those circumstances and see what, if anything, we can learn and improve upon all of our safety plans.”

Our politics team of Amanda Vinicky and Heather Cherone takes on those stories and more.