Outrage Over Gun Case May Lead to New Law

A Chicago-area homeowner who shot a burglar in his home - only to be charged with gun violations - has spurred gun groups and lawmakers into action.

The Illinois State Rifle Association is backing legislation that would shield law-abiding citizens from prosecution under "politically motivated gun control laws."

SB 2165, sponsored by Sen. Ed Petka (R-Plainfield), is intended to protect individuals who are charged with breaking municipal gun laws - if the individual used the gun in the act of defending himself or someone else.

The bill was drafted in response to a controversial shooting in Wilmette, a Chicago suburb, late last month.

In that case, a homeowner shot and wounded a man who broke into his home around 10:30 one night - the second break-in at that home in 24 hours, press reports said.

The homeowner was later arrested for violating Wilmette's ban on private handgun ownership. The man's arrest has generated nationwide protests and a flood of calls and emails to the Wilmette village hall, the Illinois State Rifle Association said.

"People of good sense everywhere are appalled that a father could be arrested and tried for defending his wife and children from a home invader," said ISRA Executive Director Richard Pearson.

"It's time to return common sense to the equation, and SB 2165 will do just that. It's difficult to imagine how anyone could oppose SB 2165, so I expect the bill to enjoy strong bipartisan support and swift passage."

The ISRA describes itself as the state's leading advocate of safe, lawful and responsible firearm ownership.

Debate with Paula Zahn on CNN about this issue

JEFF FLOCK, CNN CHICAGO BUREAU CHIEF: Rare crime in the quiet affluent Chicago suburb of Wilmette, Illinois. Police say this man, wearing a ski mask, breaks into the house. The homeowner calls 911 but also gets his gun and shoots the burglar who then steals the homeowner's SUV to drive himself to the hospital where he's arrested. The burglar is charged with felonies, but the homeowner is charged, too. Not for protecting himself, but for violating the town's ban on having a handgun.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think he did the right thing. I think the Wilmette ordinance should be repealed.

FLOCK: An angry meeting of the village board this week packed with gun proponents, not including the police chief.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My experience in this village is, that handguns create a hazard in the home.

FLOCK: All but nine states limit in some way where communities can pass local gun laws. The District of Columbia and Chicago and five towns around it are the only ones to make handguns illegal. The law has been on the book for 15 years in Wilmette but now some are rethinking.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If I owned a gun, I would probably shoot someone who came into my house who was burglarizing it as well.

ZAHN: And joining us now, two people on opposite sides. This debate over guns, Thom Mannard of the Illinois council against handgun violence. And in Washington, Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America. Good to see both of you.

LARRY PRATT, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, GUN OWNERS OF AMERICA: I think the homeowner should be given a medal. What we're seeing in the renewal of this debate, we're exposing once again the immorality of gun control, particularly gun bans where we're saying to somebody, well, we're not going to prosecute you for having defended yourself, but we are going to prosecute you because you used the most effective means available.

We've told the criminal class, not just in Wilmette but Washington, D.C. and England, that you're going to be safer if you work in these areas because people can't defend themselves. And the criminals get the message and crime has gone off the charts in Washington, D.C. and England. I think what we have to do is rethink this. And take a look at the data. We know that people in this country use guns some 7,000 times a day in self-defense. Far outstripping any criminal uses of these guns.

THOM MANNARD, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ILLINOIS COUNCIL AGAINST HANDGUN BAN: Well, Paula, in regards to defending himself, we don't look at that as the issue. The fact of the matter, is that the residents in the village of Wilmette along with law enforcement and elected officials there believe that their community is safer from gun violence by having this prohibition in place. ZAHN: But Thom, let me ask you that. There are only six municipalities in the country, including the one where this shooting happened, that have a handgun ban. The country doesn't seem to be behind these bans. Why do you support them?

MANNARD: We support the ability of people within their own communities to address the issue of gun violence in a way that they feel is appropriate. The police chief indicated, and the numbers indicate, that a gun in the home is much more likely to be used in an accidental shooting, in suicide, or in a domestic dispute than it is to be used in self-defense.

And we believe that if the people of a certain municipality believe that their municipality is safe from gun violence with this type of prohibition, then they should have the ability to do so.

ZAHN: Larry, do you have a problem with municipalities having that control? Is that the issue here?

PRATT: I don't think it's the issue, because Mr. Mannard's group and other defense groups are happy passing gun control legislation at the national level. That's just bunk that they believe in respecting local wishes and local control. What they're...

PRATT: Well, first of all, it's unconstitutional. Second, it's immoral. And thirdly, it was really stupid. It was legal to use a rifle in the self-defense situation. If this homeowner had used a rifle, he scored 50 percent of the time when he shot at a moving target in the dark in his house. If I could shoot that well, people would come to me for lessons. But two of the shots didn't hit. If he had used a rifle that had so much more energy, he would have probably had a round going through two or three of his neighbors' houses down the line.

Thom, would it have been more responsible for the homeowner to have used a different type of weapon here?

MANNARD: Well, the fact of the matter is, is that the homeowner could have had a firearm in the home. This was a prohibition on a handgun. In regards to Larry mentioning that it's unconstitutional, well this prohibition, as well as other prohibitions within the state of Illinois, have been found to be constitutional. If they were unconstitutional, they would have been taken off the books many years ago. And in fact, just yesterday, a judge ruled that the D.C. prohibition on handguns is in fact constitutional. And, therefore, the constitutional issue is irrelevant. What's relevant is what people in these communities believe will keep them safe from gun violence.

MANNARD: And the fact of the matter is that firearm death and injury is at a very low rate in the village of Wilmette.

PRATT: It is immoral to tell somebody, oh, be warm and be filled, go. And what they're telling them in Wilmette is go inside your room and lock your room and call 911. Well, once somebody's invaded your house, that means he's an aggressor, he's an invader. And in every jurisdiction of the country, including Wilmette, you have the right to defend yourself with force, and you should have the right to use the best means available, a handgun.

ZAHN: All right, gentleman, we're going to have to leave it there. You've certainly helped raise our consciousness about a very heated issue there in the Midwest. Larry Pratt and Thom Mannard, thank you for both of your perspectives.

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-letter22.html

www.suntimes.com

Gun owner: I, not cops, got bad guy
January 22, 2004

Three days after Christmas, someone broke into the DeMar family home in Wilmette through a dog door, stealing a television, an SUV and the keys to the home.

The next night, Hale DeMar was prepared for a return visit. With his children upstairs, DeMar, 54, shot burglar Morio Billings, 31, in the shoulder and calf, police said.

Billings was caught at a nearby hospital and charged with felony residential burglary and possession of a stolen car, authorities said.

And, in a move that has drawn criticism, DeMar was cited with breaking Wilmette's ban on handguns and with failing to update his firearm owner's identification card.

The misdemeanors are unlikely to bring jail time. Wilmette Police Chief George Carpenter did not criticize DeMar for protecting his family but said homes are safer without handguns.

DeMar, in a letter sent to the Chicago Sun-Times, is now speaking out:

Village Trustees ... Stick to Parade Schedules & Planting our Parks

Many of us have experienced a sense of violation upon returning to our homes, only to find that someone else has been there. Someone else has trespassed in our bedrooms, looting and stealing that which is readily replaced. Many of us, still haunted by that violation, will never again have a sense of security in our own homes. Few, however, have awakened to realize that they had been violated as they slept in their beds, doors locked, as family dogs patrolled their homes. For me, the seconds until I found my children still safely tucked in their beds were horrifying. The thought that a young child may have been hurt or abducted was incomprehensible.

The police were called and in routine fashion they came, took the report and with little concern left, promising to increase surveillance. Little comfort, since the invader now had keys to our home and our automobiles. The police informed me that this was not an uncommon event in east Wilmette and offered their condolences.

What is one to do when a criminal proceeds, undeterred by a 90-pound German shepherd, an alarm system and a property ... lit up like an outdoor stadium? And now, he had my house keys and an inventory of things he'd like to call his own. Would the police patrol my dead-end street as effectively the second time as they had the first? Would my small children be unharmed the next time? Would the career criminal be satisfied with another automobile, another television or would he feel the need, once again, to climb the staircase up to the bedrooms, perhaps for a watch or a ring or a wallet, again risking little?

Would my children wake to find a masked figure, clad in black, in their bedroom doorway, a vision that might haunt them for years? Would the police come again and fill out yet another report, and at what point should I feel comfortable that the 'bad guy' got everything he wanted and wouldn't return again, a third time?

I went to the safe where my licensed and registered gun was kept, loaded it for the very first time and tucked it under the mattress of my bed. I assured my frightened children ''that daddy would deal with the bad guy ... if he ever returned.'' Little did I imagine that this brazen animal was waiting in the backyard bushes as I tucked my children into bed.

Fifteen minutes after bedtime, the alarm went off. Three minutes after the alarm was triggered, the alarm company alerted the police to the situation and 10 minutes later the first police car pulled up to my home, but only after another call was made to 911, by a trembling, half-naked father. I suppose some would have grabbed their children and cowered in their bedroom for 13 minutes, praying that the police would get there in time to stop the criminal from climbing the stairs and confronting the family in their bedroom, dreading the sound of a bedroom door being kicked in. That's not the fear I wanted my children to experience, nor is it the cowardly act that I want my children to remember me by.

Until you are shocked by a piercing alarm in the middle of the night and met in your kitchen by a masked invader as your children shudder in their beds, until you confront that very real nightmare, please don't suggest that some village trustee knows better and he/she can effectively task the police to protect your family from the miscreants that this society has produced.

This career criminal had been arrested thirty times. He was wanted in Georgia and for parole violations in Minnesota. How many family homes had he violated, how many innocent lives were affected, how many police reports went into some back office file cabinet, only to become some abstract statistic? How is it that rabid animals like this are free to roam the streets, violating our homes and threatening the safety of our children?

If my actions have spared only one family from the distress and trauma that this habitual criminal has caused hundreds of others, then I have served my civic duty and taken one evil creature off of our streets, something that our impotent criminal justice system had failed to do, despite some thirty odd arrests, plea bargains and suspended sentences.

Hale DeMar, Wilmette

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