The Rifle Association’s ‘True Story’

The ad claims "it’s a true story," but it isn’t quite. No woman was involved, for one thing. And the burglar didn’t violently smash the door frame, as shown, but entered using a stolen key.

And Obama’s vote would not have made anybody a criminal or denied the right of self-defense. Owners of illegal weapons would simply have remained subject to the penalties of local gun bans even in cases where the weapons were used in self-defense inside a home or business. In the "true story" in question, the homeowner put two bullets into the intruder and was fined $750 for possession of a handgun.

The real story begins Dec. 28, 2003, at the $1.2 million home of Hale DeMar, a 54-year-old restaurant owner who lived in the tony Chicago surburb of Wilmette, on a cul-de-sac a few steps away from the shore of Lake Michigan. According to police files reviewed by Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn, DeMar’s home was burglarized that night by someone who crawled in through a pet door and stole a set of house keys and other items. DeMar, who was separated from his wife, was in the house with his 10-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter. He awoke the next morning to discover that he had been robbed. He called police, who took a report.

Though DeMar knew keys to the house were now in the hands of a criminal, he did not change the locks on his house. He would tell police later that he was "unable to get a locksmith to come to his home." He put his son and daughter in bed with him, loaded his .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver and put it under his bed. That night, a 31-year-old man named Morio Billings entered the home, this time through the rear kitchen door, setting off an indication on a home-security control panel in DeMar’s bedroom.

DeMar did not call the police. Instead, he left his children, went downstairs and found Billings trying to disconnect a flat-panel computer monitor (which he later told police he had mistaken for a TV set). Without saying a word, DeMar fired two shots at Billings. One missed; the other hit Billings in the shoulder. Billings ran, trying to get out of the house. DeMar fired again and missed; then fired a fourth time, hitting Billings in the calf. Billings crashed through a front window and used the family’s stolen sports-utility vehicle to drive to a hospital in nearby Evanston, where police later arrested him.

DeMar’s case caused a big stir in Illinois because Wilmette had enacted a village ordinance in 1989 banning the possession of handguns. Although the Cook County state’s attorney’s office released a statement declaring DeMar’s actions self-defense, Wilmette nevertheless charged DeMar with violating the local ban, a "petty offense" under the ordinance, and fined him $750, the maximum for a single violation. Gun-rights advocates portrayed DeMar as a hero-martyr.

Obama opposed the measure, voting against it twice on the floor of the Illinois Senate on March 25, 2004, when it passed 38 to 20, and again on May 25, when the Senate agreed to a House-passed version by a vote of 41 to 16. (The NRA says he voted "four times" but we find record of only two votes.)

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich vetoed the measure on Aug. 20, 2004, calling it an infringement on the power of localities to determine their own ordinances. The veto was overridden easily, however, and the bill became law effective Nov. 16, 2004. By that time Obama had been elected to the U.S. Senate, and he was not present for the final vote on the override.

It would be fair to characterize Obama as voting to uphold enforcement of local gun bans, even in cases where the banned weapons were used in self-defense. But the NRA goes too far when it claims that he voted "to deny citizens the right of self-protection" generally. He did no such thing. The vote would have had no effect at all in places that didn’t have local gun bans in the first place. And even though DeMar was fined for possession of an illegal weapon, he was not charged with anything more serious, such as assault with a deadly weapon, because he was found to be acting in self-defense. Had the bill the NRA refers to not passed, nothing would have changed for DeMar or others like him. He would not have been subject to anything more than paying the penalty for violating the local handgun ban.

–by Brooks Jackson