License to kill feared in `Make My Day' laws // Fast shooting at an intruder open to abuse

She was 25, the mother of a baby boy, and in the dark of a springnight, she lay dead in the middle of the street with a bullet from a.357 magnum in her chest. Nearby, her husband sprawled wounded. Intheir house nearby, a friend was bleeding - all victims of a hail ofgunfire that finally and fatally terminated a neighborhood ruckus.

Now, in a bizarre twist, the neighbor who shot the three hasbeen released, and second-degree murder and assault charges againsthim have been dismissed, all because of a new "Make My Day" lawintended to protect from prosecution residents who kill intruders.

Colorado, California and a growing handful of other states haveadopted such laws in …