..."Wilmette residents are much safer without a handgun in their homes," ...
A Felon must be protected as he rapes, pillages and murders his way through life. Armed home owners are so last century.
The two great laws of human society, from whence all the rest derive their course and obligation, are those of equity and self- preservation: By the first all men are bound alike not to hurt one another; by the second all men have a right alike to defend themselves:
Nam jure hoc evenit, ut quod quisque ob tutelam corporis suifecerit, jure fecisse existimetur ["For this comes from the law: that which someone does for the safety of his body, let it be regarded as having been done legally."],
says the civil law; that is, "It is a maxim of the law, that whatever we do in the way and for the ends of self defence, we lawfully do." All the laws of society are entirely reciprocal, and no man ought to be exempt from their force; and whoever violates this primary law of nature, ought by the law of nature to be destroyed. He who observes no law, forfeits all title to the protection of law. It is wickedness not to destroy a destroyer; and all the ill consequences of self-defence are chargeable upon him who occasioned them.
-John Trenchard & Thomas Gordon, Cato's Letters,
Considerations on the Nature of Laws, 1721