BELLEVUE, WA – This morning’s fatal shooting of a home invasion suspect by an 80-year-old retired Army veteran in Chicago’s East Garfield Park neighborhood underscores why we filed a lawsuit to overturn the city’s gun ban, the Second Amendment Foundation said today.
That case, McDonald v. City of Chicago, is about to be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. Joining SAF in that lawsuit are the Illinois State Rifle Association and four Chicago residents including Otis McDonald, for whom the case is named.
Today’s shooting of an armed home invader with a lengthy criminal record is still under investigation by police, noted SAF Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb, but it appears to be a clear-cut case of self-defense. Local newspaper reports show strong support from the older man’s neighbors. The Chicago Sun Times quoted next door neighbor Curtis Thompson, who observed, “It’s a good thing they had a gun, or they might be dead.” Another neighbor, identified as Audrey Williams, told the newspaper “I’d have done the same thing. They say we’ve got to give up our guns, but that’s crazy.”
The newspaper is also quoting the man’s 57-year-old son, who put it bluntly: “If homeowners can’t have guns to defend themselves and their families, there’s going to be more home invasions. My father’s glad he had a weapon. He did what he had to do.”
“We filed our lawsuit two years ago to protect the self-defense rights of Chicago citizens just like this man,” Gottlieb said. “We have taken the McDonald case to the Supreme Court because far too many people in Chicago are not been able to defend themselves. They have been unconscionably disarmed, and left in as much fear of being arrested and jailed for having a gun as they are afraid of being robbed and murdered by armed thugs who have ignored the gun ban.
“Chicago’s ban did not stop this violent criminal,” he added, “a homeowner with a gun did. The ban also did not stop the recent murder of off-duty police officer Thomas Wortham IV. It is time for this insidious ban to be nullified, and we are hopeful that’s exactly what the Supreme Court is about to do.”