Florida man shoots shotgun-wielding robber: "The Polk County Sheriff's Office says the victim of a would-be armed robbery shot one of his attackers on Sunday. Johnny Preston told deputies he was in the front yard of his Lakeland home preparing his cargo van for work around 6 p.m. He spotted two men in a red 4-door Mazda driving by slowly, staring at him. Preston became suspicious and retrieved his .38 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver from inside the van and wrote down the Mazda's vehicle tag number. He went back to preparing his van. Moments later, he looked up and was staring down the barrel of a shotgun. The two men, who were wearing t-shirts over their faces, demanded his wallet. Preston said he pushed the barrel of the shotgun away with one hand and fired his handgun with the other, hitting the armed suspect in the torso. The suspect, identified as Michael Darnell Richardson of Lakeland, drove himself to Plant City Hospital where he was treated and arrested. The other other suspect, identified as Mario Ford of Plant City, fled on foot, and was found hiding under a parked car. Preston was not injured."


PA: Man fired for looking at gun web sites: "It’s not unusual for employees to be fired for browsing pornographic Web sites at work. But a Pennsylvania gun owner named Tony Jackson may have been the first person ever fired for looking at Web sites featuring gun parts. … When Jackson was searching the Web for a replacement shotgun stock, supervisor Christie Vazquez — who admitted in a subsequent deposition to being ‘very anti-gun’ and had quarreled with him before about politics — noticed what he was doing. Vazquez said she was scared because it was only a few weeks after the Virginia Tech massacre (see CBS News video), so she promptly reported her colleague’s Web browsing to Planco’s human resources department. Vazquez also informed the HR department that Jackson owned guns and was a member of the National Rifle Association.”


OH: Recent self-defense shootings raise questions about law, safety: "In a recent four-week period, four local residents who were threatened by armed individuals opened fire, shooting the people who had allegedly drawn or fired the weapons first. One incident left a would-be robber dead after a homeowner shot and killed him inside his home. It’s a recent trend that leaves police torn between public safety concerns and law enforcement objectives. ‘If your life is genuinely in danger … I would expect people to fight for their lives or their family’s lives,’ said Dayton police Lt. Patrick Welsh, a former prosecuting attorney. ‘But we also encourage people to think, ‘What can I do to avoid being placed in that situation in the first place?’’ None of the four people who fired in the Dayton cases face any criminal charges.” [Comment: Hmmm, what CAN I do to avoid being in my home when a robber breaks in?]


Gun control in Britain: "At what point does the government change from protecting its citizens to controlling them? This is not an easy question, and it is one too often ignored by both citizens and governments. Government has a duty to protect its citizens from enemies and at times from each other. However, it is a slippery slope that leads governments down the path to total social control in the interest of protecting everyone everywhere all the time. Although the government should indeed be able to police its own citizens it should never be allowed to absolutely remove any single right. Does the government have a right to outlaw the possession of firearms by its citizens in the interest of protection if it means that they are severely limited in their own ability to protect themselves? Absolutely not.”