Galvanized by a modest crime wave too close to home, 40 residents, including some victims, turned out for a recent community meeting in search of reassurance from Fairfield County Sheriff Dave Phalen.

To residents’ way of thinking, crime is to be found on the mean streets of Columbus, not here — not among the pleasant cul-de-sacs of tended lawns, roomy two-story houses and late-model minivans and SUVs.

What, the residents asked Phalen, are you doing about this?

Overworked deputies, he told them, do all they can, but form only a second line of defense. Unlike urban areas, road deputies may be many miles and several minutes away.

There is too much territory to cover — too little county cash and too few deputies — to maintain the presence Phalen would prefer.

‘‘The best thing you can do,’’ he told the audience, ‘‘is to look out for each other.’’ With crime following the migration outward from Columbus, small police departments and sheriffs’ offices have been hard-pressed to keep up with the calls for service accompanying a stillspiraling population boom.

At Phalen’s public meeting, residents said they are looking out for one another. But they also are looking out for themselves.

Rottweilers, tougher dead-bolt locks, security systems and glass-block replacements for easily jimmied basement windows are among the anticrime steps listed by residents.

One homeowner, with graying hair and casual clothes, brings up the use of deadly force.

‘‘If he’s in the house and you shoot him — if you feel threatened — where do you stand?’’ he asked. Phalen’s response is to the point: ‘‘It would be appropriate to protect yourself.’’

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Despite the fact that it was the Million Mom March who held a tasteless press conference before the victim of the Case Western shooting was even laid to rest, the headline on this Sunday's Letters to the Editor page in the Cleveland Plain Dealer shouted:

"Gun backers are quick to spin every tragedy"

Under the twisted headline, they published four letters on the CWRU shooting. Only one was supportive of your right to self-defense. Another explained that the real villain of spin here is Dr. John Lott, for pointing out the obvious: yet another "gun-free safe-zone" was proven to be neither gun-free, nor safe.

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