- Stephanie Diaz, a Highland Park High School student, told Insider she wants an assault rifle ban.
- Her comments come one day after a gunman killed 7 people at a Fourth of July parade.
- Diaz carried a sign blaming the Supreme Court for allowing mass shootings to continue happening.
Stephanie Diaz stood near the Highland Park parade-route-turned-crime scene on Tuesday afternoon.
Police cars and yellow tape littered the site where a gunman killed seven people and injured dozens more in a Monday mass shooting at a Fourth of July parade in the affluent North Chicago suburb.
The 16-year-old Highland Park High School student carried with her a sign displaying a simple, but pointed message: "You could have prevented this @SCOTUS," the poster read.
"This can't keep happening. We can't keep having mass shootings and doing nothing about it," Diaz told Insider. "We need a change."
The Monday attack comes on the heels of several recent mass shootings, including incidents in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas, which intensified calls for nationwide gun control. But even amid President Joe Biden's efforts to enact tougher gun restrictions, the Supreme Court last month dramatically expanded federal gun rights, prompting, in part, Diaz's accusatory sign.
The top court in a 6-3 decision struck down a century-old gun permit law in New York, opening the door for individuals to carry a gun outside their home for self-defense purposes.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas also drew additional ire in the wake of Monday's shooting for his previous opposition to Highland Park's ban on military-style rifles. Nearly a decade before the Fourth of July attack this week, Highland Park banned "assault weapons," including Ar-15 and AK-47-style firearms.
The 2013 ban prompted a challenge that made it all the way to the US Supreme Court, which ultimately declined to hear the case in favor of letting a lower court's ruling stand.
But Thomas, the longest-serving current justice on the top court, opposed the prohibition and wrote in a dissenting opinion that the "overwhelming majority" of people who used such weapons would do so lawfully.
Police identified a 21-year-old man as a person of interest in Monday's shooting and took him into custody without incident, following an hours-long manhunt. The shooting suspect disguised himself in women's clothing before firing off more than 70 rounds from a high-powered rifle into crowds gathered for the parade, according to authorities.
The shooting suspect legally obtained the weapon he used, the city's mayor announced on Tuesday, though she said it wasn't yet clear where he got the gun.
Diaz told Insider on Tuesday she received a frightening text from her boyfriend the day of the shooting. He had been at the city's parade and told her that he believed he had just been involved in an attack.
Her boyfriend later appeared in video from the scene, running away as shots rang out, Diaz said.
"I had to see a video of him running for his life, which is something that, as a loved one, you should never have to see," she said. "It was such a relief to be able to hug him."
Diaz said she wants a full ban on assault rifles in the wake of her community's tragedy.
"The only way we can help is to make a change and make sure other lives aren't taken away," she told Insider. "No one should have those guns."
"It's going to take a long time before I can go back into town and just enjoy it," she added.