Amy Brewer of Kill Devil Hills (NC) “heard suspicious noises” under her Outer Banks beach house yesterday and then proceeded to do just about everything you could do wrong.

A person was shot in Kill Devil Hills on Monday, according to police.

The incident that happened on Mitchell Court around 4 p.m.

Mitchell Court is one of several small residential courts off 5th Street in Kill Devil Hills.

Police say a resident of Mitchell Court, Amy Brewer, heard suspicious noises coming from under her house. She armed herself with a .38 revolver and went outside to investigate.

Brewer saw two males fleeing into a neighbor’s yard so she shot at the males twice, striking one in the left leg.

Brewer called 911 and was cooperative with the investigation.

Instead of calling Kill Devil Hills Police (mistake #1) who are used to dealing with prowlers and burglars during the beach community’s off-season, the 55-year-old Brewer grabbed her .38 Special revolver and left the relative safety of her elevated home (mistake #2) and wandered out of her home without a clue of who was outside, how many were outside, or what their intentions were.

When Brewer saw two men running away from her home and already in her neighbor’s yard, she opened fire (mistake #3) on them, even though neither apparently armed nor posing the slightest threat towards her. Did I mention, they were already in the neighbor’s yard, running away?!?!?!

She was not close to acting within the law by opening fire on two men who were, at that point, suspected of being nothing more than trespassers (and it’s worth noting neither man was charged with even that minor crime).

Brewer then called 911, and apparently couldn’t stop talking (mistake #4), putting herself in jail on a charge of assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury, a Class E felony.

If found guilty, Brewer can expect to spend anywhere between 15-31 months in prison, with the presumptive sentence being 20-25 months (meaning the judge will most likely impose the 20-25 month sentence, and must state his reasons for a harsher or more lenient sentence).

All of this could have been avoided if Brewer had bothered to learn the basics of North Carolina’s gun laws, including where and when she is authorized to use deadly force. According to the details of the case provided, she did not come close to acting reasonably, firing multiple shots at fleeing individuals who weren’t even apparently still on her property when shots were fired.

It’s people like this who give all gun owners a bad name.

Note: Home at the top of the page is a representative example of a beach home in Kill Devil Hills to show the elevated architecture for those of you who may not easily understand how people were under Brewer’s home. While from the same street, the photo pulled from Google is not her home. Probably.