[maxwellp]

When we lived in Queens, NY I defended myself with a handgun. One night when my husband was working at night, some guy rang our apartment bell. Because I wanted to watch a particular show on TV that night and did not want to talk to neighbors, I just didn't answer. The bell rang again and I realized my neighbors were not home - so I tiptoed to the door and opened the tiny part of the peephole and saw some black dude and heard him trying to pick the lock. I quietly ran to the bedroom and got my husband's handgun, which I didn't know how to use, ran back to the door, opened the larger part of the peephole and shoved the gun through. The guy screamed and ran to the staircase and jumped the eight steps down and kept going. I'm a thinking person - I was in my own home and all I wanted to do was watch a TV program. When some individual decides he wants to enter my home and rob me or do me harm, I become very enraged. Very enraged. Later I learned to shoot a handgun. I missed the TV show I wanted to watch and I'm still enraged, years later.

[yarddog]

I have several I could tell but will only go with one. This story was told about a year ago but it won't hurt to repeat it.

I was spending a few days in a cabin owned by my parents. This cabin is relatively isolated yet still is only a couple of hundred yards from a paved road.

I was asleep and about midnight heard noises outside. It sounded like someone was trying to get into a camper parked near the cabin. I suspected someone would try to come into the cabin and got a flashlight and Browning Hi Power.

Sure enough, in a few minutes someone started trying to open the locked door. I jerked the door open and hit the outside light at the same time. I immediately stuck the muzzle of the loaded and ready pistol right between his eyes, touching his forehead. This guy looked like he could have come out of central casting. He had long black hair, a beard and was dirty.

To my surprise, he was not affected at all. He calmly said that his car was in the ditch and he needed help.

I called the Sheriff and an off duty deputy heard the call and came right by. It turned out the guy really was in the ditch. The deputy and I both agreed he was high on drugs. He had stalled his car and run the battery down. He had been trying to get into the battery compartment of the camper. Probably just looking for whatever he could find.

I came across the deputy a few days later and he told me the guy was on marijuana. They kept him in jail for the night and let him go, since I didn't press charges.

BTW the deputy was killed a few weeks later during an armed robbery at a rural liquor store.