The father of the man accused of killing seven people and wounding 48 others during a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois, was arrested on Friday on charges of felony reckless conduct.

The suspected gunman’s father is charged with seven counts of felony reckless conduct, according to Lake County State’s Attorney Eric Rinehart. The Daily Wire is not publishing the names of the suspect or his father in keeping with a policy of depriving alleged mass shooters of undeserved notoriety.

“Parents and guardians are in the best position to decide whether their teenager should have a weapon. They are the first line of defense. In this case, that system failed when (the suspect’s father) sponsored his son,” Rinehart said in a statement. “He knew what he knew, and he signed the form anyway.  This was criminally reckless and a contributing cause to the bodily harm suffered by the victims on July 4th.” 

The suspect’s father turned himself in to law enforcement, the statement also revealed. He was scheduled for a bond hearing on Saturday, where a judge set bond at $50,000, according to CNN.

Bond conditions require the suspected gunman’s father to surrender his weapons and to refrain from drug and alcohol usage, it added. His next hearing is scheduled for January 12, 2023.

The prosecutors argue that the suspected killer’s father helped his son obtain a Firearm Owner’s Identification (FOID) Card, which was only possible for a person under 21 years old with a parent’s participation in the application process. The charges claim that the father’s assistance in obtaining the FOID card was a contributing cause to those killed by the shooter during the parade.

Reckless conduct is considered a Class 4 Felony, the statement noted, which could lead to a sentence of up to three years in prison.

The alleged gunman, who was 21 years old at the time of the mass shooting, faces 117 charges in the killing of seven people and wounding dozens of others. His court date is scheduled for January 31, 2023. He confessed to firing more than 80 rounds during the parade, though he later pleaded not guilty.

The Daily Wire previously reported that defense attorney Scott Greenfield explained why someone who confessed in this matter would still plead not guilty.

“The defendant is always told to plead ‘not guilty’ at arraignment in order to allow his lawyer to engage in discovery, motion practice and plea negotiations,” Greenfield said. “It’s entirely normal and reflects nothing about ‘innocence’ per se, but allows the lawyer room to do his job of zealously representing the defendant, no matter how overwhelming the evidence of guilty.”

Despite the suspected gunman having no criminal record before the shootings, he was the focus of two calls from family members in 2019. The first call came in response to a suicide attempt.

The second call came from a family member who said the suspect threatened to “kill everybody.” Police removed 16 knives, one dagger, and one sword from the suspect’s home, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

Despite the reports, the young man obtained a FOID card with the help of his father at the age of 19, which allowed him to legally own a firearm in Illinois.

Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) called on all Americans to delete the popular video-sharing app TikTok from their devices because of its parent company’s connections to the Chinese government. 

Appearing on CNN’s “State of The Union” with host Jake Tapper, Gallagher expressed concerns over personal information and data that could be shared with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). 100 million Americans use the app, including about two-thirds of teenagers. When Tapper asked Gallagher whether they should delete the app, Gallagher replied, “they should.”

“TikTok is owned by ByteDance and ByteDance is effectively controlled by the Chinese Communist Party,” Gallagher said. “The editor-in-chief of ByteDance, for example, is a CCP secretary and has talked about making sure all product lines, all business lines follow appropriate political control,” he added. 

"Should they delete that app?"

"They should."

Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) shares why he believes TikTok should be banned from use in the US. @CNNSotu #CNNSOTU pic.twitter.com/Zhfmz8O9lX

— CNN (@CNN) December 18, 2022

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) introduced legislation last week called “Averting the National Threat of Internet Surveillance, Oppressive Censorship and Influence, and Algorithmic Learning by the Chinese Communist Party Act (ANTI-SOCIAL CCP Act).” It would ban TikTok in America. Gallagher and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) unveiled the same bill in the House. 

“The question we have to ask is whether we want to give the CCP the ability to track our location, track what websites we visit even when we’re not using the TikTok app itself, and increasingly, since a large percentage of young Americans use TikTok to get their news, whether we want them to have the ability to selectively edit that news,” Gallagher told Tapper. 

“It’s as if in 1958, given that TikTok is on the cusp of becoming the most powerful media company in America, we would have allowed the KGB and Pravda to buy the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post all combined,” he continued. 

Nearly two dozen of ByteDance’s directors previously worked for Chinese state media outlets, and 15 employees currently do, according to LinkedIn profiles reviewed by Forbes.

In a Washington Post op-ed last month, Gallagher and Rubio warned that while TikTok promotes content with hopes of going viral, it could also be used to “subtly indoctrinate American citizens.” Then, in an interview last week on Fox News, Gallagher took issue with Americans getting their news from the app, saying the Chinese government “can propagandize young Americans.”

The Senate unanimously passed Sen. Josh Hawley’s (R-MO) No TikTok On Government Devices legislation last week. In addition, many state governments have banned the app on government-issued devices, including Iowa, North Dakota, Alabama, Nebraska, South Dakota, South Carolina, Maryland, Texas, Utah, and Oklahoma. 

FBI Director Christopher Wray told Homeland Security Committee House members last month that TikTok poses national security threats from the CCP.

“They include the possibility that the Chinese government could use it to control data collection on millions of users. Or control the recommendation algorithm, which could be used for influence operations if they so chose. Or to control software on millions of devices, which gives it opportunity to potentially technically compromise personal devices,” he said. 

Former President Donald Trump signed an executive order before leaving office that banned TikTok in the U.S. The order was never implemented following legal hurdles, and Biden revoked it in June 2021, replacing it with his own directive to protect the data of Americans from foreign adversaries.