Tampa, Florida:

Police say 42-year-old Jerome Haggins, armed with a pistol, entered a Tampa home Saturday night, ordered six men to the ground and demanded they give up their wallets and jewelry. He then forced them to take off their clothes and noticed that one of the men had not given up his bracelet.

Police say Haggins put his pistol on a table, walked over to the man and snatched the bracelet. But while Haggins was taking the bracelet, police say another victim grabbed the gun and pointed it at Haggins. The would-be victims held Haggins until police arrived.

Oops. (via Wizbang)

Gaston, North Carolina:

A would-be burglar who’d been scared off from one house by a 70-year-old woman found himself a few minutes later staring down the wrong end of a shotgun at another, police say.

And before the sun rose Sunday, Joshuah Scott Rutledge probably figured out that this northern Gaston County town wasn’t ripe for the picking.

“If they think Stanley is sleepy, they’ve got another thing coming,” said 56-year-old Phyllis Osborne, who now calls her 62-year-old husband Richard her “knight in shining armor.”

Rutledge, 26, of Oakboro was reportedly climbing through a bathroom window of a woman’s home on the 3500 block of N.C. 27 in Stanley at 4:30 a.m. Sunday when the woman, who’d had her 70th birthday the week before, spotted him and scared him away before he could get inside.

He then apparently went to a house across the street off N.C. 27 on Watts Street, this time making it inside.

But once inside he found himself staring at Richard Osborne and an old shotgun that his wife’s grandfather had once used to slaughter hogs. Whether the gun would still fire a shot remains in question.

Apparently, the punk didn’t feel lucky.

Something that needs to be constantly hammered when talking about gun control is that, when it comes to self defense, a gun is the only tool available that allows a huge segment of the population to equalize or neutralize the threat of criminals younger and stronger than they are.

And this doesn’t only apply to the very valid “but criminals would still have guns” argument. Even if you could “wave the magic wand” and make all firearms everywhere vanish in a poof, the older and weaker among us would be at the mercy of the young thug. Therefore, even if it were possible to 100% disarm 100% of the criminals, guns would be 100% necessary.

We should be asking “Why do gun control proponents want to make victims of senior citizens?“

Sebastian points us to a story with a happy ending:

Victim shoots man during robbery try
An armed robber who tried to stick up a man Monday night ended up getting shot when the victim pulled out his own gun, police said.

Says a commenter:

What a heartwarming story for the Holiday Season. It is people like this man that was being robbed that show the generosity to share a bullet with a robber that make this country great. God Bless him.

When it comes to gunfire, ’tis far better to give than to receive!

Sebastian also points out that the would-be victim is an open carry activist.

Prisons beefing up teleconferencing to save money

It costs the state of Connecticut at least $1,600 every time multiple murder suspect Joshua Komisarjevsky appears in a courtroom.

Despite his slight build and boyish appearance, Komisarjevsky is classified as a high security inmate, facing charges of murder, rape and arson from a 2007 home invasion in which a woman and her two daughters were killed in Cheshire.

At every court appearance, a special detail of corrections officers and two state troopers are assigned to accompany him.

So, when Komisarjevsky was due in family court earlier this year on an unrelated matter, prison officials opted for a teleconference. Instead an expensive trip to the courthouse, officers escorted Komisarjevsky down the hall from his cell at the MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution in Suffield, to a room where he participated in the hearing via two-way video.

I think this makes a lot of sense.

Also, recall that Dr. William Petit, whose wife and two daughters were killed by Komisarjevsky and his partner, has become an activist for the “Three Strike Law.”

Rifle stolen in 1977 is returned to owner

Mike Cassidy had a Marlin lever-action stolen from an unlocked car three decades ago.

But on Friday, 31 years after the theft, Cassidy and the rifle were reunited after a Fort Worth police officer discovered that the stolen rifle had recently been sold to an east Fort Worth gun store.

Officer R.D. Gilfour said pawn shops and gun dealers must document all transactions of secondhand property they receive, including serial numbers. Gilfour said that when a clerk entered the rifle’s serial number into an online nationwide database, police learned that the gun that had recently been sold to the Winchester Gallery Gun Store, 6054 E. Lancaster Ave., had been stolen three decades ago in Albuquerque.

Gilfour obtained a copy of the police report from Albuquerque police and, upon confirming the rifle’s make and model, confiscated it from the dealer. He said it was the oldest stolen gun ever recovered through the database.

He then set out to track down the owner.

Person Injured In Drive-By Shooting

Homeland Park, SC:

Neighbors said they heard what sounded like a high-powered assault rifle go off just after 9 p.m. Wednesday.

It would be interesting to ask the neighbors what specific aspects of the sound made it sound like a “high-powered assault rifle” rather than a regular-powered assault rifle, or even just a regular non-assault rifle. How was it different, from their living rooms or wherever they were when they heard it, from a handgun. Maybe play them a tape of ten different guns and ask them to pick out the “high-powered assault rifles.”

Heck, I’d be interested in hearing what they think a “high-powered assault rifle” even is.

Police: Delivery drivers targeted

Delaware:

Since Oct. 31 there has been a rash of holdups in northern New Castle County targeting food deliverymen. Five of the seven robberies and one failed attempt have occurred in the past week, most recently Monday night.

The article offers a number of safety tips. Don’t bother looking. None of them include anything about defending yourself. One says not to resist because the money isn’t worth the risk. That’s possibly true, but many of these robberies involve the delivery driver getting beat first. A policy of “don’t resist, it’s just money” simply encourages more copycats, which is exactly what we’re seeing.

Boy, 8, charged with killing two, including dad

This double killing in St. Johns, Arizona, by an 8-year-old was carried out with a .22 rifle. Don’t discount the capability (or the danger) of a .22.

Meanwhile, police screwed up by not reading the kid his rights and by interviewing him (rather forcefully, it seems) without any legal representation present.

Cape Girardeau woman shoots, kills would-be rapist at her home

A Cape Girardeau woman shot and fatally wounded Ronnie W. Preyer, 47, a registered sex offender who had broken into her home early this morning with the intention of raping her a second time, Cape Girardeau Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle said today.

Swingle said he will not be charging the victim, an older woman who positively identified Preyer this morning as the man who raped her on Saturday.

You really should go read the whole thing. The story reads like a commercial advocating self-defense.

Cape Girardeau police had been keeping a close eye on the woman’s home, in the southwest part of Cape Girardeau, since she reported the rape nearly a week ago.

In that instance, she’d heard the glass break in a basement window around midnight on Saturday, and decided to make a run for it through her front door, according to police reports of the incident. When she opened the door, Preyer attacked her.

He punched her in the face and forced her into the bedroom, where he raped her…

Police were actively working the unsolved rape case, Swingle said, and had been frequently driving past the woman’s home in case her attacker returned.

Yet there he was, in her house again.

Earlier that night, the woman had actually called 911 after hearing a suspicious noise. Police had responded but found no evidence of a problem. About two hours later, the rapist returned for real.

He found a main fuse panel in the basement and shut off the electricity. The victim immediately tried to call 911, but the phone would not work because there was no electric.

Having recently purchased a shotgun, she grabbed the weapon and when Preyer began banging on the basement door, she was ready for him. When he crashed through the basement door into her kitchen, she shot him once in the chest and ran, heading for a neighbor’s house, where she called the police.

It only took officers 45 seconds to respond to the 911 call, Swingle said.

So that’s supposed to impress someone? It only took 45 seconds? That’s 45 seconds after she called, which was after she went to a neighbor’s house. Which was after she fled her own home. Which was after she shot the intruder. Which was after the intruder charged her. Which was after the intruder cut the power. Which was after the intruder broke into the house.

Which, of course, was all after he had ALREADY RAPED her last week.

No, 45 seconds response time isn’t terribly impressive. In fact, 45 seconds response time is apparently at least SIX DAYS LATE.

Preyer’s criminal history is speckled with home invasions and assaults, and he has been convicted of failing to inform the county of his change of address in compliance with registered sex offender laws. Swingle was getting ready to charge him with rape, attempted rape, burglary and attempted burglary this morning, armed with the positive eyewitness identification, when he learned around 9:30 a.m. that Preyer was dead.

Preyer was convicted in 1989 of raping and robbing a woman in New Madrid County and he served 15 years in prison on both charges.

He was also arrested last December and charged with attempted rape and second degree felony assault, but Swingle’s office dismissed the charges because he did not think he could get a conviction, he said.

Ah. Not six days late. Nineteen years late.

This is one of the most insane things I’ve heard for a while:

SUMTER, S.C. (AP) — An ex-convict who thought he was being robbed gunned down a 12-year-old trick-or-treater, spraying nearly 30 rounds with an assault rifle from inside his home after hearing a knock on the door, police said Saturday.

Quentin Patrick, 22, is accused of killing 12-year-old T.J. Darrisaw on Friday night. T.J.’s 9-year-old brother, Ahmadre Darrisaw, and their father, Freddie Grinnell, were injured but were released after being treated at a hospital.

The family attended a Halloween celebration in downtown Sumter, 45 miles east of Columbia, then stopped at Patrick’s house because the porch light was on, police said. Another sibling was with them, but wasn’t hurt.

Police said at least two of the boys were wearing ghoulish masks when they knocked on the door. The boys’ mother and a toddler stayed in the car nearby.

Patrick emptied his AK-47, shooting at least 29 times through his front door, walls and windows after hearing the knock, Police Chief Patty Patterson said.

He told police he had been robbed and shot in the past year.

Makes it sound like just some guy that wigged out, no? Well, a little farther down:

Police said they also charged a 19-year-old in his home, Ericka Patrice Pee, with obstruction of justice when she was caught trying to run away after the shooting with $7,500 in cash…

Patrick had multiple drug convictions but police do not believe he was under the influence of drugs or alcohol during the shooting.

$7500 in cash? Maybe he was moonlighting as a drug dealer? Perhaps had reason to think someone was after him? Why would a drug dealer think someone might be after them? Well, mostly because they’re a drug dealer, I guess.

Just speculation, of course. But I’m predicting this isn’t some normal, everyday, upstanding, law-abiding citizen that “just snapped.”