A woman in her thirties barricades herself in an apartment complex. She is armed with a handgun, a couple boxes of ammunition, and an empty prescription vial of Prozac.

A sheriff’s patrol car arrives in response to a call of "shots fired." She barely misses the first officer on the scene, but shoots his marked patrol car twice. The deputy calls on the radio for backup.

Now the place is crawling with cops—all of them diving for cover. A hostage negotiator tries to talk the woman into peaceful surrender. She answers with a volley of gunfire.

By the time the six hour siege ends, the lady gunslinger has fired 48 shots. Luckily she is a lousy shot, although she does manage to put bullet holes in five sheriff’s cars and leaves ricochet bullets throughout the apartment complex.

How does this thing end? The lady gunslinger is shot in the elbow by a member of the Sheriff’s SWAT team. Wounded and unable to operate her weapon, she is subdued without further incident. She is sentenced to 10 years on multiple counts of "assault with intent to kill."

Justice is served—but only for a little while. After serving 18 months in prison and some counseling with a shrink, the lady gunslinger is up for parole.

"How could that be?" police ask.

"Assault with intent to kill" is not considered a violent crime, prison officials reply with a straight face.

"Shooting at cops 48 times is not an act of violence?" scream deputies who’d been on the target end of this lady’s pistol.

Folks at the "big house" say that since she didn’t actually "hit anyone," it is not a true act of violence. All she did was "attempt" to kill cops—albeit 48 times.

After protests by deputies who were at the crime scene when this "act of nonviolence" occurred, Probation, Pardon & Parole add a note to the woman’s file stating that "she might still be considered a risk." Parole is denied—this time. But she’s coming up again, soon. Better head for cover while you’ve still got a chance.