CHICAGO (WLS) — Local religious leaders gathered in Chicago to urge Illinois lawmakers to ban assault weapons.
The General Assembly is back in Springfield Wednesday and are expected to wrap up their work on the legislation banning assault weapons, known as the Protect Illinois Communities Act.
The inter-faith leaders gathered at Good Hope Free Will Baptist Church on the West Side to show their support.
The press conference took place blocks from a mass shooting that took place in October where 14 people were injured and one person died.
It also comes six months after the mass shooting in Highland Park on the 4th of July.
“What high-capacity magazines do is turn they turn guns into hand-held killing machines,” Reverend Marshall Hatch of New Mount Pilgrim Church said. “No place in a civil society.
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“People her on this alter helped me in dark times this past summer so I am honored to stand here today,” Rabbi Ike Serotta of Makom Solel Lakeside Highland Park said. “There is no doubt that if we can save a live, just one, a tradition says we can save a whole world.”
The Protect Illinois Communities Act would ban future sales of assault weapons, raise the age for a FOID card and more. The challenge is getting enough lawmakers on board to pass the act.
The lame-duck session lasts through January 10. The new General Assembly is sworn in on January 11.
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