Get With The Program, Pal

Old folks like you are supposed to keel over and die at the first sign of trouble. What business do you have actually defending your wife from knife-wielding thugs? Don't you know guns are nothing but evil killing machines?

Despite being 83 years old and reliant on oxygen tubes for a lung ailment, Harry Carpenter wouldn't let his wife of 57 years be robbed by knife-wielding intruders in his own home.

Two would-be robbers forced their way into the home of Carpenter and his wife, Jackie, Wednesday evening while the two were having dinner, according to a police report.

One of them made Harry Carpenter sit down in the sun room, while the other went with Jackie Carpenter, 80, to get money from her bedroom.

Carpenter tried to come to his wife's rescue but was threatened with the knife.

Then he got his break -- his wife pretended to faint and the intruder who was holding him went into the other room to see what was happening.

Carpenter shuffled to the laundry room, where he kept an old, unloaded rifle that he used to shoot squirrels, he said.

When one of the intruders came back, he found Carpenter aiming the rifle at him and yelled at his companion to flee. Police were unable to locate the two suspects, who didn't get any money.

Good on you, Harry.