The man accused of killing seven people and wounding dozens of others in a shooting that terrorized a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois, had been investigated by the local police before. Officers had responded in 2019 after someone reported that he had tried to kill himself.

Robert E. Crimo III, 21, was charged with seven counts of first-degree murder.

In Highland Park, the police said that Crimo appeared to have prepared for weeks to attack the parade on Monday morning, and that he had used a fire escape to climb atop a downtown business to fire dozens of rounds from a high-powered rifle into the crowd. Afterward, they said, he escaped by discarding his rifle and blending into the crowd while wearing women’s clothing.

Crimo was arrested about eight hours later when a resident spotted him on a highway in a nearby suburb.

The attack on Monday was also not the first to raise questions about vulnerabilities in Illinois’s strict gun laws, which require a permit to own a weapon, and which include a red flag provision that allows law enforcement to seize weapons from people deemed dangerous.

Today’s read is from Kylee Griswold, an assistant editor at The Federalist. Here’s an excerpt:

As the armchair class prattles on about how our first freedoms are an existential threat, the face and name of the 21-year-old alleged shooter are plastered all over every news channel as he sits remorseless in jail facing a slew of charges that will probably amount to life in prison at worst.

Despite a local so-called assault weapons ban plus red flag laws and a state with some of the strictest gun-control laws in America, many people died.

It’s time for a new approach, and this case presents the perfect set of circumstances to justify it. The Highland Park shooter should be executed, and he should be executed quickly.

Read the entire column here.