A gun in the home(OH)

Last week, Toledo police confiscated a handgun from a 92-year-old woman after she nearly blew away a police officer because she was afraid he was a burglar trying to break into her home.

The incident highlights the potential for fatal mistakes when private citizens exercise their Second Amendment right to bear arms. But police should return the weapon to its owner if she is not going to be charged with a crime.

Annie Huddleston's Indiana Avenue neighborhood is not the most dangerous part of the city. Residents of some blocks even describe it as quiet.

But other neighbors say gunshots are everyday occurrences, vacant and abandoned buildings invite criminal activity, and break-ins and robberies are common. They blame much of the problem on young people, nearly 2,500 of whom are said to belong to about 25 gangs.

This is the sort of neighborhood Mayor Mike Bell was talking about when he told inner-city gang members in April that elderly residents were "scared to open the door," and that people "fear living in our city." In 2011, 210 people were reported shot in the city, a 73 percent increase over 2010. "As a mayor," Mr. Bell said, "I cannot allow that to continue."

It takes time to turn tough talk into tough enforcement. It takes longer for criminals to get the message. Neighborhood residents have to help by telling police who and where the bad guys are.

Until Mayor Bell and Police Chief Derrick Diggs make good on the promise to "take our city back," residents of Toledo's mean streets are going to find other ways to protect themselves. For some people, that means owning a gun.

Ms. Huddleston has had at least two guns in her home. One was stolen in a 2006 break-in. The other -- a .357

Cops make mistakes all the time.

There is a local cop in a town near here who is on trial right now for blowing a lady’s head off as she sat in the drivers seat of her car. She wasn’t armed, she wasn’t doing anything wrong, she didn’t appear to pose any threat to the officer. He shot her several times with his service pistol in the head at close range. He made a mistake.

I understand that the officer had recently returned from duty overseas. There has been some discussion that PTSD may have had some influence. Still, he made a mistake.

If you choose to keep a firearm in your home, and I have lots and lots of them, you should be aware of your responsibility in the way those weapons are used and stored.

If you shoot someone on your property, you better have a really good, iron clad, reason for doing so. If you kill them, you will still be investigated for the shooting. All of your firearms will be confiscated, not just the one involved, until the inquest is over. The law will toss the rest of your house while they are at it, just to make sure. You will probably get most of your guns back, someday.

If you don’t kill the person you shot at, all of the above is still going to happen except now you are going to be sued to the extent that a cardboard box beside a dumpster somewhere will look pretty good in the near future.

If you shoot and kill what you were certain was a burglar and it turns out to be your drunk brother-in-law, you are going to jail. You must be able to ID your target BEFORE you use deadly force. Those aren’t just noble sounding words, it’s the law.

I don’t want to live next door to anyone who starts blazing away with a .357 Magnum. I own two of them currently and I will attest to the power of this cartridge. It has the velocity and energy to penetrate the outside walls of the shooter’s house as well as those of the neighbor’s.

I will be happy to do whatever I can to try to get this lady’s gun gun back for her under the condition that she trade it to me for a 20 gauge, single barreled shotgun and a lifetime supply of self defense shells which won’t take out the burglar, the cat, and the neighbor sitting in his kitchen.

That way, the next time a stupid cop tries to break in her door without announcing himself, he won’t walk away so lucky.

Years ago, I had the police call me in the middle of the night asking if a particular tag and car belonged to me

Wow, similair thing happened to my family. We had neighbors with a teenage girl who caused her mom big problems. At any rate, another neighbor got tired of the yelling and screaming and called 911. The police only knew that a kid was screaming in a house nearby.

They rang our bell and politely asked me if everyone was ok. I said yes, what’s going on? They then asked to SEE everyone in the house in order to ask THEM if they were ok.

My wife and kids woke up and came to the door.

That was a strange thing to happen at 11:45 pm. I didn’t hear of anything happening, but assume it was no big deal.

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