Ore. woman shoots, kills home intruder: "A man was shot and killed by a woman after he broke into her house in Redmond and tried to attack her with what authorities called an "improvised weapon" as she defended her children. Deschutes County sheriff's deputies said the 51-year-old woman has not been charged in the Wednesday night death. Identities were not immediately released. Sheriff's deputies said the woman called 911 dispatchers just before 11 p.m. to report a man she knew was outside her home, refusing to leave. As the woman was on the phone with dispatchers, the man broke out a kitchen window and entered the home. Deputies said the woman had armed herself with a handgun and moved her 8- and 12-year-old children into the bathroom as the man attempted to assault her."


FL: Woman shoots man trying to invade: "Police said Wednesday night that they're questioning a woman after reports that she gunned down an intruder at her home in Orlando. Police would not give many details about the incident, but investigators said a man was shot at the front door of a Botany Court residence. They said the man was dead by the time crews arrived. Neighbors said a woman in her late 20s, who lived at the home, shot the man as he tried to kick down her door. They said they saw several people running after the shooting. Police did not say if those people may have been involved in the attempted home invasion. The woman's uncle, Tracy Clark, said he believed his niece was acting in self-defense."


AZ: Shooter of aggressive neighbors acquitted: "A jury acquitted Darryl Chenowth of murdering two men near his home in McNeal at the conclusion of a trial Wednesday in Cochise County Superior Court. Chenowth, 52, was charged with first-degree murder of Thomas Rand, 44, and Leonardo Rivera, 20, on Jan. 11. Jurors were also allowed to consider lesser included offenses of second-degree murder and manslaughter. The jury of seven men and five women deliberated for only a few hours on Wednesday before reaching the verdicts of not guilty on each count. The defendant told law enforcement officials that Rivera’s pit bull terrier was causing problems for his cattle and horses. He said he warned Rivera that he would shoot the dog if it kept doing so. On the night of Jan. 11, Chenowth said, he fatally shot the dog when it tried to bite him. He said Rivera threatened that he would to burn down his house with him inside. Rand and Rivera confronted him. He said he shot them with a pistol in self-defense when Rand hit him in the leg with a stick and when he thought Rivera was going to strike him... After the trial, Ken Sugden, who was the jury’s foreman, explained to the Herald/Review that members of the panel reviewed the evidence and they felt this outcome was appropriate. He said some main factors in this case were the significant amount of stress that Chenowth experienced during the incident, and the way a person under attack can react automatically without any real thought."


In Defense of Self Defense: "The fact that guns are effective killing devices encourages many people to feel that the guns themselves are evil rather than giving credit to those who use them for evil or for good. They also rarely have any knowledge that firearm statistics are routinely manipulated and misrepresented - even the U.S. Centers for Disease Control include suicides in their gun death statistics (which greatly inflates the apparent death toll). The U.S. has a high gun murder rate; England with strict gun controls has almost no gun murders and a very low murder rate. This shows that gun control is effective in reducing murder doesn't it? No. Prior to having any gun controls at all, England already had a homicide rate much lower than the United States (Guns, Murders, and the Constitution: A Realistic Assessment of Gun Control, Don B. Kates Jr.). The Swiss (pop: 7 million) have hundreds of thousands of fully-automatic rifles in their homes (see GunCite's "Swiss Gun Laws") and the Israelis, until recently, have had easy access to guns. Both countries have low homicide rates. (incidentally, the brits are having no luck keeping their criminals from keeping and bearing arms). The U.S. has a higher rate of murders which do not involve firearms than some European country's total murder rates. On the other hand, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Mexico have gun-less murder rates in excess of our total murder rate. All that can be determined is that there are many factors that influence homicide rates, and crime in general, more than the availability of firearms."