Defending the home: the plight of Wilmette, Illinois, homeowner Hale DeMar shows both the importance of being armed and the unfairness of today's gun laws and criminal-justice system.

On May 20, 1988, Laurie Dann of Glencoe, Illinois, walked into a second-grade classroom at Hubbard Woods School in nearby Wilmette. Armed with three handguns, she began firing randomly at children, killing one and wounding five others.

Dann fled to a nearby home, where she took a family hostage. When police arrived, she shot a 20-year-old male member of the family in the chest (he survived), then killed herself.

Dann had recently lost her job as a babysitter because the family for whom she worked was moving from the area. She was under psychiatric care, and an autopsy revealed traces of the prescription drugs lithium (for treating manic-depression) and Anafranil (an antidepressant). Before going on her shooting rampage at the school, she had set several tires and had attempted to poison some people with arsenic.

The next year, in response to the tragedy, the village board of trustees in Wilmette approved an ordinance banning village residents from having handguns, with violators facing fines of up to $750. Earlier attempts to pass such a measure had failed, but in the wake of the Dann rampage the vote of the seven-member board was unanimous.

Responding to Crisis

The ordinance's predictable, if unintended, consequences elbowed their unjust way into the lives of Wilmette restaurant owner Hale DeMar, his wife, and their two sons (ages 8 and 10). Sometime between 11 p.m. on December 29, 2003 and 2:45 a.m. the next morning, someone entered the DeMar residence through a large dog door in the garage. The intruder stole a television, a Sony PlayStation, and a set of keys to the house and the family's automobiles, including a BMW sports utility vehicle. The thief then fled in the SUV.

Mr. DeMar, concerned for his family's safety and worried that the thief might return, retrieved a handgun from a safe, loaded it and tucked it under the mattress of his bed. The gun was duly licensed and registered as required by state law.

The brazen thief returned at around 10:30 p.m. that night, gaining entry to the house by using the keys he had pilfered less than 24 hours earlier. Mr. DeMar had just tucked his sons into bed when he heard the home security alarm go off. Grabbing the handgun from under his mattress, he went downstairs to investigate. Finding the masked interloper in the kitchen, he fired one shot. The miscreant, undeterred, advanced toward DeMar, who fired three more times. Two of the four bullets found their mark, striking 31-year-old Morio Billings in the left shoulder and left calf. Billings, despite his wounds, tan past DeMar, crashed through a living room window, jumped into the SUV, and drove himself to a hospital in Evanston for treatment of the injuries.

Mr. DeMar called 911, but the police had already been notified by the security alarm company and were on the way. They arrived about 10 minutes later, and soon located and arrested Billings at the hospital. Billings' wounds required surgery but were not life-threatening. He was charged the next day with two counts of residential burglary and one count of possessing a stolen motor vehicle. In 1997 he had been convicted of retail theft, and in 2002 he had been convicted of another home burglary in an affluent suburb of Minneapolis, Minnesota. His criminal record reportedly includes some 30 arrests, convictions, plea bargains, and/or suspended sentences.

Legal Gauntlet

With Billings in custody, authorities turned their attention to Mr. DeMar. Police confiscated both of his handguns (the .38-caliber Smith & Wesson with which he shot Billings, and a .380-caliber Llama Especial). Then prosecutors had to determine if the shooting of Billings was justified. On December 31, Marcy Jensen, a spokes woman for the Cook County state's attorney's office, announced that DeMar had indeed acted in self-defense and would not face any criminal charges.

The investigation also found that Mr. DeMar had bought his guns legally and had registered them as required by the Prairie State's draconian gun control laws--but had neglected to renew his state Firearm Owner's Identification (FOI) card when it expired in 1988. Through his attorney, DeMar claimed that it was an inadvertent memory lapse; he had moved in recent years, so did not receive notice that the card had expired. Nevertheless, on January 8 Wilmette police announced that he was being charged not only for violating Wilmette's handgun ban (a misdemeanor), but also for failure to renew his FOI card (a felony). For the latter offense, he faced a maximum sentence of one year in jail and a $2,500 fine.

Mr. DeMar's initial court date was set for February 6, but before the hearing began Cook County prosecutors announced that they were dropping the FOI card charge. Assistant State's Attorney Steve Goebel told reporters, "We are not going to revictimize Mr. DeMar. We choose to prosecute the real criminal here, the person who broke into this house not once, but twice." Goebel noted that the gun that DeMar had used to defend himself and his family was legally purchased and registered. He explained that the homeowner had only erred in "keep[ing] current [his FOI card], and we chose not to prosecute this memory lapse," since it would "violate the spirit of the law and be a narrow-minded approach." He also said that the decision not to prosecute was made after conferring with Wilmette police.

Several Wilmette residents had shown up at the courthouse to lend moral support to DeMar. One, retired contractor W.T. Egan, rhetorically asked a Chicago SunTimes reporter, "If a criminal is going to break into a house, what type of town would he go to?" Answering his own question, he quipped: "A town with a gun ban."

There remained only the question of whether DeMar would be charged with, and fined for, violating Wilmette's repugnant handgun ban. Initially, it appeared that he would not be. The Associated Press reported on January 1 that "Wilmette police say a homeowner who shot an intruder during a break-in will not be charged with violating the affluent Chicago suburb's handgun bah." But one week later Mr. DeMar was charged with violating the bah. In a news release, Police Chief George Carpenter, a staunch advocate of the ban, claimed that "choosing to use a handgun" in self-defense when an intruder breaks into the home at night "actually reduces your family's safety." He added, "It would be unfortunate and potentially tragic to conclude from this incident that Wilmette families will be safer if they keep a handgun in their homes. The opposite is true. Wilmette families are in greater danger if they keep a handgun at home."

So how ate Wilmette residents supposed to protect themselves? Chief Carpenter advised residents to "immediately lock the door to their bedroom and dial 9-1-1, which will connect them in seconds to telecommunicators at the Wilmette Police Department. These experienced professionals will keep you on the line giving instructions, and will ask relevant, important questions designed to result in a quick and effective police response. Your family's safety is far more likely to be preserved by calling 9-1-1, and allowing experienced police officers to search your home, than by arming yourself and searching your home in the dark without calling police."

That advice struck Mr. DeMar as ludicrous. As he explained in a letter published in the January 22 Sun-Times, "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.... 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."

DeMar also recalled the police response to the previous night's robbery when the SUV was stolen: "[I]n routine fashion [the police] 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."

Writing in the January 22 Munster (Indiana) Times, columnist Lee Enokian pointed out the irony that "police would not have been alerted to DeMar's firearm ownership if Billings had not broken into his home." Enokian added, "If the Wilmette police had captured Billings after the first burglary, then DeMar would not have had to shoot him."

During a January 13 village board meeting, Chief Carpenter again defended the handgun ban and his decision to file charges against DeMar. The next day's Chicago Tribune described the residents who attended as a "feisty crowd dominated by gun-rights advocates." According to the Tribune, "When the Pledge of Allegiance was recited at the start of the meeting, several members of the audience loudly emphasized the words, 'And justice for all.'" One attendee told the Sun-Times that calling 911 "is not going to be as fast as a bullet" when confronted by crime-bent thugs in one's home. "My plan A," he said, "is to call 911, but my plan B is to have a loaded firearm and put a bullet [in]to who ever breaks into my home. I'm going to protect my family, it's all I've got."

Chief Carpenter told the concerned Wilmette residents that he would not condemn DeMar's actions, weakly asserting: "This resident's decision to use a handgun will not be criticized by me. This resident was in a situation where he did what he thought was appropriate." He then reiterated a litany of misleading anti-gun mantras also found in the playbooks of national gun control lobbyists, while ignoring (or perhaps being unaware of) the impressive research compiled by such scholars as former University of Chicago law professor John R. Lott, Jr. (currently a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute) and Florida State University criminologist Dr. Gary Kleck. Dr. Lott, in researching his books More Guns, Less Crime and The Bias Against Guns, found that firearms are used five times more frequently to prevent crimes than to commit crimes. Dr. Kleck's analyses indicate that Americans effectively use guns in self-defense up to 2.5 million times annually (usually without a shot being fired).

In stark contradiction to these findings, Chief Carpenter opined, "my experience is handguns create a hazard in the home. My experience is that handguns are far more likely to be stolen, to be used or threatened to be used in domestic situations, or to be used or threatened to be used in suicides" than in self-defense. But when Munster Times columnist Enokian contacted the police department, spokesman Officer Roger Ockrim told him "that he knew of no Wilmette police statistics regarding firearm theft or their use in domestic arguments, suicide attempts of accidental discharge within the village in 2002 or 2003."

What Next?

Based on sundry news accounts, most members of the village board appear to have little inclination to modify or repeal the handgun ban at present, despite the local and national furor incited by its blatantly unjust application to Mr. DeMar. Trustee Bernard Michna thinks "it's close to unanimous there will be no change in the handgun ordinance."

Mr. DeMar could end the ordeal by admitting "guilt" and paying a fine, but he has instead opted to fight the charge. On February 6, the day that he appeared before Judge Thaddeus Stephen Machnik for the initial hearing in the case, his attorneys filed a counterclaim against Wilmette, contending that the anti-handgun ordinance violates their client's rights. Judge Machnik set the next hearing for April 22.

Meanwhile, state Senator Ed Petka (R.-Plainfield) and state Representative John Bradley (D.-Marion) have introduced bills in the Illinois legislature that would allow residents in communities that prohibit handgun ownership to nevertheless use handguns in their homes for self-defense and in defense of other persons. Rep. Bradley told the January 29 e-mail newsletter Illinois Leader, "We have a right to defend ourselves, our property, our wife, our kids. People here are pro-Second Amendment and interested in protecting our rights and families. I think it's important to send a strong a message on this." And the February 11 Sun-Times quoted Sen. Petka as believing that "in circumstances like this, an individual should be afforded the right to self-protection, and no government at any level should interfere with that right."

In his January 22 letter to the Sun-Times, Mr. DeMar asserted: "If my actions have spared only one family from the distress and trauma that this habitual criminal [Billings] 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." He reflected, "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 ... can effectively task the police to protect your family from the miscreants that this society has produced."