It happened Tuesday at the Carl's Jr. restaurant at 385 N. 800 West. Police said the 26-year-old man had gone into the bathroom to use the toilet, armed with a .40-caliber Kahr P40 handgun. The man, who has a valid concealed weapon permit and was lawfully in possession of the gun, had it in a holster inside his pants.

"While pulling his pants up the gun fell out of the holster, striking the tile floor," Centerville Police Lt. Paul Child said Wednesday. "When the gun hit the floor, it went off, and the bullet struck the toilet, shattering it and sending sharp pieces of porcelain flying."

The man was hit by some porcelain shards, lacerating his arm. No one else was injured, but an employee of the restaurant in the next-door women's restroom heard the gunshot and panicked.

"She was shaken, she was upset and was complaining of some chest pain," Child said.

The man walked into the restaurant area, holding his wound and asked an employee to call 911. Police and paramedics responded to the call of shots fired inside the restaurant and ended up treating the man for the cuts to his arm. The woman also was treated at the scene.

County councillor for the area Robert Palmer said he had seen a "round, white light that seemed to be hovering".

Ecotricity, which owns the site, said while investigations continued they were not ruling anything out - but the extent of damage was "unique".

The turbine is one of 20 at the Conisholme site, which has been only been fully operational since April 2008. The broken blade has been recovered and is being examined.

Local ufologists said they had received many reports of activity in the area and had teams searching for clues.

t's not uncommon to hear stories of people defending their homes and themselves from intruders-- but when it's a 70-year-old woman, that story is a bit more uncommon.

It's exactly what happened in St. Joseph County on Sunday night, after an intruder broke into an elderly woman's home on Portage Road.

The woman held the man at gunpoint until police arrived. That man is 28-year-old Cyrus Brown. Brown is being held in jail on a number of charges, including burglary and intimidation.

The woman who defended herself is Sandra. She asked us not to use her last name. Newscenter 16 spoke to her by phone Monday night, while she recovered in her hospital room. She’s being treated for heart problems, problems she didn't have until Sunday night's scare.

As you'll hear, this 70-year-old is a gutsy lady who wasn't about to let anybody mess with her.

It was all started about nine o'clock Sunday night. Sandra says she was in the midst of splitting wood for her fire and making vegetable soup, when she heard a ruckus outside.

“All of a sudden, I’m hearing fast footsteps around my yard, around my deck,” says Sandra.

That's when she says she grabbed her gun and called 911. Moments later-- the intruder-- 28-year-old Cyrus Brown, broke through her back patio door, pushing his way through the glass.

“Immediately, I felt there was danger because he was so desperate,” explains the 70-year-old. “He's in the kitchen by the stove, I told him to get down on the floor. I said if you come any closer to me, I will shoot you to kill. I told him to sit down, don't move, and I want to see your hands at all times,” adds Sandra.

Newscenter 16 obtained the 911 call that Sandra made. In the background, you can hear her demanding the suspect get down.

911 call:
Dispatch: “Ma’am, where is he at in the house?”
Sandra: “Get, get, get! You have more to fear from me!”

911 call:
Dispatch: “Ma'am, are you holding him at gunpoint?”
Sandra: “Yes, I am. And if he moves towards me, I'm afraid I'm going to have to kill. I don't want to have to kill him.”

In that moment, Sandra says she was glad she had a gun and knew how to use it-- just in case.

“I thought that this could turn out badly because I heard of other people being murdered in their house, but I decided, I wasn't going to go down without a fight. I owe that to my children,” she explains. “Guns aren't all bad, only in the hands of the criminal and guns can be a good defense.”

In the end, you can hear the relief in Sandra's voice, as the police arrive at her back door.

911 call:
Sandra: “Cops!”
Police: “Get down, get down!”
Dispatch: “Ma'am, can you put the gun down for me please?”
Sandra: “It's down.”
Dispatch: “Great, great, ok!”

If you'd like to listen to Sandra's 911 call in its entirety, we have a link at the top of this story.

Sandra is a mother of three and has several grandchildren.

She's set to have a procedure on her heart this week. As you can imagine, this whole situation has caused the 70-year-old a lot of stress.

She says she hopes others can learn from her story and think about protecting themselves. She’s hoping to have a neighborhood meeting in her area to discuss safety in homes.

Law enforcement agencies around the world are encountering the illegal possession, sale and use of stun guns and other non lethal weapons in ever increasing numbers. When looking for a stun gun for sale, abiding by the law or going through sanctioned channels is not a high priority for this cross section of society.

Parolees don’t want to get caught with a weapon, even a non lethal one. It could be considered a violation of parole conditions. Others with criminal intent do not want to go through regular, legal channels, either. Although not classified as a regular firearm because stun guns do not require an explosion to be effective, they are still considered weapons.

In the case of TASERs, they are not considered firearms, either, due to the lack of gunpowder or other explosive, though there was an initial jockeying around period in their early days. These days, if you buy a TASER the weapon is registered in your name, as a regular firearm would be. Part of their reasoning is that when some TASERs are employed in an illegal fashion.

If you are looking to buy a stun gun, choose a reputable dealer, someone with a track record. Check out the manufacturer’s warranty. Find out what happens if you don’t like it or can’t keep it for some reason.

Don’t pick one just because it’s pretty and comes in pink. Find out how many volts the thing can deliver and how many bursts it has in reserve. Check out the safety features and if it has a disable pin.

In most cases, you get what you pay for. If you’re the penny-pinching sort, remember that your life – or someone else’s – could depend on the unit you have in your hand.

Since November, the sheriff's office has issued 473 new permits. In November of last year, only 134 permits were issued.

Since last January, there has been a 36 percent increase in the number of permits approved in Westmoreland County.

One obvious answer is firepower. Guns were illegal in the hands of both the terrorists and the victims. The victims obeyed the laws, the terrorists didn’t. The police had guns, of course, but instead of protecting people, they stayed away until the massacre was practically over. Gun laws -- surprise, surprise! -- weren’t strong enough to defend victims, only strong enough to keep victims from defending themselves.

India’s gun control, one of the strictest in the world, goes back to the 19th century when Britain introduced it to forestall a repetition of the Indian Mutiny. “The guns used in last week’s Bombay massacre were all ‘prohibited weapons’ under Indian law,” wrote Richard Munday in the Times Online, “just as they are in Britain.” The terrorists were successful because they didn’t obey the gun control law rooted in the Raj, while their victims did.

India isn’t alone. Many countries, including Canada, have gone out of their way to make criminals as invincible and victims as vulnerable as possible. This isn’t the aim, of course, only the result.

“Guns don’t kill, people do.” The gun lobby’s old slogan is true enough, but it’s also true that guns make people more efficient killers. That’s why gun control would be such a splendid idea if someone could find a way to make criminals and lunatics obey it. Since only law-abiding citizens obey it, it’s not such a hot idea. It’s more like
trying to control stray dogs by neutering veterinarians.

The police carry guns for a reason: They’re great tools for law-enforcement. No doubt, guns make criminals more efficient, but they make crime-fighters more efficient, too. Letting firearms become the monopoly of lawbreakers, far from enhancing public safety, is detrimental to it. What you want is more armed people, not fewer, on the side of the law. It would be hard to imagine a Mumbai-type atrocity in Dodge City -- or in Edwardian Europe, for that matter, where gentlemen routinely carried handguns for protection.

Some regard carrying guns uncivilized. I’d hesitate to call an era of legal guns in the hands of Edwardian gentlemen less civilized -- or less safe -- than our own era of illegal guns in the hands of drug dealers and terrorists. The civilized place was turn-of-the century London, where citizens carried guns and the police didn’t. In any event, a constitutional guarantee to one’s “security of person” shouldn’t depend on how fast a 911 operator can pick up the phone.

Society needs crime control, not gun control. Munday writes that “violent crime in America has plummeted” in the past two decades after the majority of states enacted “right to carry” legislation and issued permits to carry concealed weapons to citizens of good repute. I think there were many reasons for the decline, but “right to carry” certainly wasn’t detrimental to it.

There are Second Amendment absolutists in America, and libertarians elsewhere, who regard a person’s birthright to own/carry a firearm beyond the state’s power to regulate. I’m not one of them. I think it’s reasonable for communities to set thresholds of age, proficiency, legal status, etc., for the possession of lethal weapons, just as they set standards for the operation of motor vehicles, airplanes and ham radios. But it seems to me that, within common sense perimeters, you’d want to enhance, not diminish, the defensive capacity of the good guys, and increase rather than decrease the number of auxiliary crime-fighters who are available to be deputized when the bad guys start climbing over the fence.

Munday quotes no less an advocate of non-violence than Mahatma Gandhi on the imperial decree of the Indian Arms Act of 1878 that laid the foundation for the defenselessness of the victims of the Mumbai massacre 130 years later. “Among the many misdeeds of British rule in India,” said the Mahatma, “history will look upon the act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.”
National Post

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She never leaves home without it.

Hain, 30, has caused a stir in this rural Pennsylvania Dutch community 25 miles east of Harrisburg for packing a gun everywhere she goes, including to her 5-year-old daughter's soccer games this fall.

She's paid a big price for sticking to her gun.

The mother of four, who often carries a baby on one hip and her Glock on the other, has been criticized by even the most ardent gun-lovers. From once-friendly neighbors to the local police chief, the general feeling is that Hain's pistol-packing behavior is, well, extreme.

"People get alarmed because they don't see that too often," said Charlie Jones, a soccer coach who confronted Hain about the gun at a Sept. 11 game. "They don't know what your intentions are going to be."

Hain said the outcry has hurt her babysitting business and left her feeling isolated. She has been called an attention-seeker, psycho, moron and worse on hundreds of pages on Internet forums. Neighbors have blasted her on radio shows, her daughter's principal warned her against taking the gun to school (she doesn't), and the local police chief advised her to put it away.

Now she is firing back. On Oct. 24, Hain filed a federal lawsuit against Lebanon County and Mike DeLeo, the sheriff who revoked her gun permit after jittery parents complained about her at the Sept. 11 game.

The suit says they violated her constitutional and civil rights and seeks more than $1 million.

"The sheriff got on TV after the hearing and said, 'I stand by my decision,' " said Hain, who grew up in Lancaster County in a family that did not own guns. "That comment makes people think I'm still an idiot and what he did was right."

DeLeo, who calls himself a staunch NRA member, said he has nothing against guns but felt it was his duty to take action "because of the safety and security issues involving [children] on the field."

Last week, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence offered to defend DeLeo and the county for free.

"This is a case that calls out for common sense and sanity," said Daniel Vice, the center's senior attorney. "It's an incredible risk to bring a loaded semi-automatic weapon to a children's soccer game."

No one disputes Hain's right to own a gun. Many of her critics are hunters. But they say that packing heat at a soccer game - or anywhere else around children - is dangerous and foolhardy.

In Pennsylvania, gun owners are allowed to carry weapons in the open as Hain does, but need a permit to conceal them in a pocket, purse or car. So without a permit, Hain could still carry a gun at the game but couldn't take it in the car to get there.

Even Judge Robert J. Eby, who restored her permit on Oct. 14, said he thought she lacked good judgment and common sense.

"You scared the devil out of some other people," Eby said.

He chided her for causing anxiety and apprehension in other people and said he didn't think anyone needed gun protection at a 5-year-old's soccer game. Concealing it "would be the right thing to do," he said.

Hain, who has children ages 1, 5 and 9 and a 9-year-old stepdaughter, says a near-fatal car accident 21/2 years ago destroyed her sense of security and convinced her that the worst can happen.

"I thought, 'What more can I do to ensure the safety of myself and my children?' " she said. "It's not a matter of being paranoid. People have smoke detectors and fire extinguishers in their homes. They're not paranoid; they're prepared."

"I grew up in the country not being able to even see my neighbor's house. We didn't lock our doors at night," said Herron, a native of Mattawan, Mich., in the southwest part of the state. "I even felt like Green Bay (Wis.) was a small town and nothing would ever happen there. I slept many nights with my doors unlocked. So, with that being said, after feeling threatened for my life, I think (protection) is necessary."

Herron had never seen himself as a gun owner. But his outlook changed in May, the instant a would-be burglar climbed through a first-floor window in his house while Herron was upstairs in his bedroom. Herron, 5 feet 11 and 218 pounds, thwarted the burglary by disabling one of two suspects, beating him with an unscrewed bedpost. The suspect was hospitalized.

In the event there's a next time, Herron, 26, figures he'll be more prepared. Now he owns a gun.

Firearms have become a popular means of protection for many NFL players. But the dangers of irresponsible gun use have taken center stage again, this time in the wake of Giants star Plaxico Burress' accidental, self-inflicted gunshot wound last weekend, a shooting that has ended his season and drawn weapons charges in New York City.

It has been widely debated why Burress, 31, and others consider guns a necessity. Herron isn't the only Buccaneers player who can make a compelling case for having guns — legal, registered ones — accessible.

Cornerback Phillip Buchanon survived a home invasion in 2006. At least six men in ski masks burst into his suburban Atlanta house and held him and friends at gunpoint for more than an hour. The men took valuables — electronics, jewelry, clothing — and Buchanon's luxury SUV. He also was pistol-whipped.

"I look at everything differently after that incident," Buchanon, 28, said.

Without getting specific about his position on gun ownership, Buchanon dropped a hint that he, too, has armed himself.

"I'm protecting myself," he said. "Believe that. I'm not going to tell the world, but trust me. I protect myself."

The NFL frowns on guns. Its weapons policy "strongly" recommends that players not own them. Weapons are expressly prohibited on the premises of all NFL facilities and a number of other locations, ranging from places hosting team functions to team hotels.

Click on the link for the rest of the story. 

A handful of violent incidents occurred at malls this week as shoppers mobbed stores for deals at the start of the holiday shopping season.

"Traditionally, the holiday season does bring more criminal activity to shopping centers," said Gee Cosper, a former Secret Service agent who is a security consultant to shopping centers.

Click on the link for the rest of the story.  I for one will be looking for the shoppers wearing a fanny pack. I will hang around them as we know that most of them have their permits. - Clark