Posted on 01/22/2004 3:22:03 AM PST by kattracks
January 22, 2004
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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
It depends on the reading, and how the commas are interpreted.
Nonetheless, Section 241 is quite clear and leaves no room for ambiguity.
You're F***ing welcome.
The NRA was there when we fought the Oak Park gun ban and they were there for the others. They gave matching funds for our fight and the best advice they could in a village that was a "nuclear free" zone. I moved soon after.
Now all you have to do is see that the Armed Females put their money where their mouth is and match the same funds the NRA is going to put out for the upcoming Winnetka fights. That's because instead of childish attacks against any gun group we have a bigger enemy to fight. Too bad the Armed Females don't seem to get that.
Correction: Any officer out there doing this shouldn't be patting themselves on the back, but hang their head in shame for being unAmerican.
How eloquent! Is that supposed to convince me that I'm wrong? If so, it didn't have the intended effect.
That's because instead of childish attacks against any gun group we have a bigger enemy to fight.
In case you didn't understand my first post, the message I was sending was to point out that YOU should stop attacking other pro-gun groups. Yes, it is a fact that the NRA is the oldest gun rights organization, and the largest by far. As such, it is only logical that it has far more in resources than any other group - probably more than the rest combined. I pointed out to you that I, myself, am a member and have been since 1989, so I am obviously happy enough with it to keep giving them my hard-earned money. What I am unhappy with is YOUR bashing of other pro-gun groups. Supporting and defending the NRA because you believe it to be the best organization that we have to help preserve (and re-take) our 2nd Amendment rights is fine - and is probably objectively correct. But attacking other groups that are also fighting for our RKBA is unacceptable. Just as we shouldn't denigrate the UK and Italy for failing to contribute as much to the Iraq War as the US did - because they ARE allies and ARE fighting for the same goal - so should you refrain from attacking AFA, GOA, CCRKBA, JPFO and any other group that is allied with the NRA in the fight to preserve our RKBA.
Too bad the Armed Females don't seem to get that.
As I indicated, I've never been a member of AFA. I'll add that I don't intend to join, either. Thus, I am NOT carrying any of their water. I addressed you about this AS A FELLOW NRA MEMBER because you have a habit of defending every single thing that the NRA does (and it is no more perfect than any individual is perfect), while simultaneously bashing every other pro-gun group. If you are honest with yourself, you'll admit that it is true. While I don't ask for and don't expect you to either admit it to me or to apologize to anyone, I do ask you to stop bashing other gun groups. As you yourself pointed out "...we have a bigger enemy to fight." It would be nice if you followed your own advice - because it happens to be correct. Focus on and fight the real enemies - the Schumers, Feinsteins, Bradys, Kennedys, Reeds, etc. - and leave alone the people pulling in the same general direction as the NRA.
(If you want on or off this Illinois ping list, please send me a FReepmail)
If you read the statutes closely, you'll notice that when the Unlawful Use of Weapon statute describes the requirement for an Illinois resident to have a FOID card when in possession of a firearm outside his residence or fixed place of business, it explicitly states that the FOID card must be current and valid. Likewise the statutes regarding sales of firearms require the recipient to have a current and valid FOID. The FOID act applicable to possession in one's home or fixed place of business, however, merely requires that the person possess a FOID card previously issued to the person by the Illinois State Police.
I'd be curious to know if anyone has taken this issue to court, since the difference in language does not seem to be accidental. Legislators could have had good reason to make the distinction, since it avoids making someone a criminal by default, and also prevents the state from making someone a criminal by failing to renew a FOID card in a timely manner. Someone whose FOID card application was sat upon by the state would not be allowed to buy firearms or ammunition, nor to transport firearms unless disassembled, but they could leave their firearms at home while waiting for the state to issue the FOID card as required by law.
Unfortunately, the Illinois Supreme Court has declared that cities may ban or arbitrarily restrict ownership of any type of firearms provided only that they don't absolutely forbid ownership of all firearms. I know that doesn't make such bans unconstitutional any more than a court declaration that "two plus two is five" would make it so. But the government that makes such declarations is more than willing to use force against anyone who would challenge them.
The language is not accidental. It is compromise language negotiated in order that cynical politicians could be on both sides of the issue at the same time. They target one piece of mail to gun control supporters "I supported taking guns off the street." They target another piece of mail to pro-gun voters "I fought for your right to protect your family in your own home."
They are currently running the Oberweiss campaign in Illinois. They are cynically exploiting the immigration issue the same way. Their position on immigration, and guns, and every issue is whatever will get them power.
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