XENIA, Ohio - Neighbors are expressing concern after a vandal apparently cut a cage security fence, allowing three 250-pound black bears to briefly escape near this southwest Ohio community.

A sheriff's deputy fired at one bear. The owner, David Walker, coaxed them back into their 9-acre enclosure where they fled through a hole in the fence late Sunday night.

Janet Grooms, 69, who lives across the street, called the bears "an awful danger."

Another neighbor agreed. "They're wild bears and I don't think they should be around a neighborhood like this," Frances Brown said.

Lynn Rogers, lead biologist for the Wildlife Research Institute in Ely, Minn., said in his 37 years of studying black bears, he has never been attacked.

Walker, who has seven state-licensed bears and three four-week-old cubs, said the bears are not dangerous.

Lawmakers tighten Indiana stolen gun bill

INDIANAPOLIS - A Senate committee tightened language in a bill that opponents said would have made Indiana the first state to give blanket immunity to gun owners whose weapons are stolen and later us in crimes committed by others.

The original version of the bill granted gun owners nearly blanket immunity even if they carelessly left a gun somewhere and someone else used it for a crime. That version would have made a gun owner liable only if they gave the gun to someone knowing that person would use it to commit a crime.

The Senate Criminal, Civil and Public Policy Committee amended the legislation Tuesday to specify that the gun must be stolen for owners to gain protection from lawsuits.

Bill supporters say the amendment clarifies the intent of the bill without watering it down.

Gun control advocates, however, say there is no need to protect citizens who secure their guns.