On July 9, neighbors along Warfield Street in Milford heard shots and saw Stephen Baisdell standing near a dead cat in his driveway.

Under a state law increasingly being used to take firearms from potentially dangerous gun owners, police confiscated his weapon. He will not be able to possess a gun again until at least next July, probably longer.

Similar gun seizures have taken place from Greenwich, where a woman pulled a silver Ruger .357 on her daughter, saying, "She would rather shoot her and have her go to heaven as a heterosexual than have her go to hell as a homosexual," to Darien, where a man with a Browning shotgun sent disturbing text messages to his ex-wife, to Redding, where an avid hunter came home from a night of drinking and fired a gun into the ceiling of his house.

These stories, along with hundreds of others, are contained in weapon-seizure affidavits: public documents collected by state courts that were reviewed by Hearst Connecticut Media.

Old law, new interest

The Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre of nearly two years ago drove the national debate on gun rights, firearms restrictions and mental health. In Connecticut, more and more people have been calling police to report concerns about the mental stability of nearby gun-owners, and there has been a major increase in the number of court-ordered gun seizures. The confiscations last at least a year, but a seizure may effectively bar someone from gun possession for life, depending on the circumstances.

"Since Sandy Hook, a lot of people are saying, `Is there somebody in our lives who has guns and behavioral issues?' " said Michael P. Lawlor, undersecretary for criminal justice policy and planning in the state Office of Policy and Management. "I think people are more likely to make the call now. This is a legal mechanism for a judge to issue a search-and-seizure order where no crime is committed, usually within a few hours of a complaint."

The law allowing friends and neighbors to start gun-seizure proceedings in state courts dates to 1999.

But following mass shootings in Arizona, Colorado and -- finally -- Newtown, more people who see something say something, said Dr. Michael A. Norko, director of forensic services for the state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services.

The first year the law was enacted, Judicial Branch records show there were 10 seizure warrants issued statewide. Ten years later, in 2009, there were 64. By 2013, the year after the Newtown shootings, there were 183, and as of mid-November of this year, 151.

"Mass shootings have also increased public awareness, as well as the public sense of trying to do something," said Norko, an associate professor of psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine who is involved in a joint study by Yale, the University of Connecticut and Duke University on weapons confiscations. "The law allows people to take advantage of resources to try to stop the kind of things that could lead to violence.

"Newtown has everyone thinking about it. I think it's all quite encouraging, because without having police utilize an arrest power, it allows people to get help in difficult situations.

"There have been almost 1,000 seizures at this point and in many of the affidavits, you read these stories of how desperate people feel. The problem with guns is there's no going back from a gunshot to the head. If you take an overdose of pills, you can change your mind and call for help," he said.

Lottery shootings

Connecticut lawmakers approved the measure in response to the March 1998 murders of four people in state lottery headquarters by a disgruntled employee who committed suicide in the adjacent parking lot in Newington.

While most weapon seizure warrants filed are the result of gun owners threatening themselves or others, animal abuse and a history of mental illness are also in the checklist that responding officers review before recommending taking away weapons. By law, the weapons can be taken and held for up to a year even when no criminal charges are filed. At the end of the year, the case goes back to court.

Connecticut, along with Indiana and, most recently, California are leading the nation in taking guns away from disturbed people before they cause harm to themselves or others.

"Plus, more police are aware now of how this law works and they are more likely to use it as an option than 10 or 15 years ago," said Lawlor, who as co-chairman of the General Assembly's Judiciary Committee helped draft the law. "This is only when the police don't have other options. Many of these records show how a potential tragedy was avoided. Maybe a suicide, maybe a murder-suicide, maybe a mass shooting."

Public awareness, Lawlor said, resulted in some high-profile arrests, like that of William Dong, the Fairfield man caught with weapons Dec. 3, 2013, on the campus of the University of New Haven after a bystander called police.

But the hundreds of affidavits filed in courthouses throughout the state show the prevalence of firearms statewide and the ability of judges and law enforcement to take the guns away -- constitutionally -- when gun owners are in crisis.

Tragedies prevented

Some of the affidavit reports read like eerie reminders of the Dec. 14, 2012, Sandy Hook massacre, in which the isolated, distraught shooter, Adam Lanza, amassed an array of weapons in his bedroom before murdering his mother, then 20 first-graders and six adults in Sandy Hook Elementary School.

At least one life may have been saved early July 15, 2013, when a depressed, sad Bryan Bardin, of Shelton, was surrounded by local police on Smith Street in Derby, outside the home of a female acquaintance. Police saw Bardin crying in the driver's seat of his Volkswagen Jetta, with the muzzle of his .45 caliber handgun under his chin.

After an hourlong standoff, police persuaded Bardin to throw his ammunition from his car.

"I still have one in the chamber," he shouted, before finally relenting and surrendering the gun. Stuck on the dashboard of his vehicle was a note that read "I'm Incapable of Love."

Police took him to Griffin Hospital, where he was committed for a non-voluntary mental examination.

By 3 a.m., Shelton police, already involved in a related harassment investigation of Bardin, went to his home where his father, William, led them to the troubled young man's bedroom. The walls were pockmarked with holes from his fists.

"In Bryan Bardin's room, officers noticed a large, open, camouflaged backpack with the following in it: camouflaged clothes, rationed meals, canned goods, a survival pack, knives, alcohol and camping goods," the seven-page affidavit said.

Weapons police seized from a safe included several rifles, including a military style SKS 7.62 mm with a large-capacity ammunition magazine and a Romanian AK-47 assault rifle. The father, police said "was unaware that his son had so many guns and was unsure why he had them."

In July, Bardin, now 26, pleaded guilty to reckless endangerment and was given two years probation. On Dec, 10, 2013, he was granted permission in state Superior Court in Derby to sell the weapons to a licensed gun dealer and keep the proceeds. Both William and Bryan Bardin declined to be interviewed for this report.

Woodchuck trouble

Some say the seizures have gone too far.

On June 25, William Hanford Jr., 78, of Black Rock Turnpike in Fairfield, shot a woodchuck with a .22 rifle, then, while holding his weapon, police said, he asked a tenant the whereabouts of her cat.

As part of a deal in which he avoided a potential prison sentence under the state's accelerated rehabilitation program, Hanford forfeited the weapon, which was destroyed.

Hanford, in an interview last week, disputed the police version of the incident. A lifelong town resident known for raising and selling zinnias, impatiens and thousands of tomatoes each year, Hanford said he had been in a protracted campaign to remove the tenant, whose eviction deadline was the day after the woodchuck incident. Hanford said she invented the threat to her cat.

When he saw two woodchucks wander into his garage, he closed the door out of fear they were rabid, he said. One ran out before the door closed. He then went downstairs and grabbed an old .22 rifle off a wall rack in the cellar. After shooting the rodent, he put the weapon in an adjacent greenhouse.

The tenant called the police, claiming that Hanford threatened her cat.

Next thing he knew, Fairfield police had shut down Black Rock Turnpike and were aiming rifles at him.

"They were hollering at me," Hanford said. "They came running down the driveway and hit me. I was standing there like a poor old soul and they came down and tackled me. I have a mechanical aortic valve and they dragged me to the ground. It was the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen.

"I had to hire a lawyer for $3,500 because I killed a woodchuck? I had the gun for 45 or 50 years. I never had any trouble. It was hanging on the wall down in the cellar. After living in Fairfield for 78 years I had never been arrested for anything and they treated me like a dog," he said.

Robert Crook, president of the Coalition of Connecticut Sportsmen, said he's not sure of the overall effectiveness of the turn-in-your-neighbor provisions.

"A lot of those people are not aware that you can get your guns back," Crook said. "I do know some people get their guns back if they apply."

The state's 2013 gun law requires those whose guns are seized to possess gun permits in order to get them back. The permitting process for all gun owners is controlled by the State Police, who decide the suitability of an applicant. The names of disqualified gun owners are also entered into the database that gun dealers use for background checks, said Chris Duryea, research attorney for the Judicial Branch.

The most important issue in stopping gun violence, Norko said, is to help those who need counseling, therapy, or more.

"We have to keep encouraging people to reach out for help and to make it less stigmatizing for people to seek help," Norko said. "Sometimes, in the debates we have, the language gets difficult and people with mental illness are referred to as the problem. That's the public image, but you don't want the person you love treated as an evil or bad person. We have to change discourse from fear to resources."

kdixon@ctpost.com; 860-549-4670; twitter.com/KenDixonCT; facebook.com/kendixonct.hearst; blog.ctnews.com/dixon