As WBBM reports, the Wilmette, Illinois handgun ban was abolished last night by the 7-0 vote of the village board. The Wilmette village board should be applauded for removing this likely unconstitutional and proven ineffective handgun ban, which served only to hinder the ability of law abiding citizens to defend themselves:
The Wimette handgun ban is most well known for injustice: Wilmette residents and restaurant owner Hale DeMar shot an intruder in his home, in December of 2003. The Cook County State’s Attorney quite sensibly refused to prosecute Mr. DeMar, but the village of Wilmette assessed Hale DeMar a $750 fine for defending himself and his children from a drug using, car stealing, home invading, and AWOL criminal.
Unfortunately, Wilmette is also considering pointless handgun registration requirements: League of Women Voters representative Georgia Gephardt urged passage of replacement ordinances providing for licensing of guns, a waiting period before purchase, mandatory identification checks and annual renewal requirements. I say that these restrictions would be pointless because a criminal will steal a gun, or buy their gun on the black market, and certainly won’t register it. Instead, those restrictions would only serve as a way to make the gun ownership process more difficult for law abiding citizens.