The husband would come home after bail, and the mother was well within her right to remove the potential threat.
Absolutely incorrect. They were not living together--she broke into his residence and stole his property.
There's a lot of hype and drama and misleading statements being made about this incident in the news--I'm not going to address them all, other than to say that it is important to take the time to get the details correct.
For example, She may have been "battered" but there is no evidence in any of the articles I have read to suggest that is true. Nor is it true that her estranged husband tried to "run her over" as has been said in some articles. He was arrested for ramming the rear of her car while she was driving it, not for battering her or for trying to run her over.
I am absolutely not justifying what her husband did or saying that she deserved it, I'm just saying that making things up or trying to "spin" them to make things sound more dramatic isn't good journalism but I have seen a lot of articles which are doing their best to mislead casual readers.
All that aside, this situation comes down to one very simple truth.
You don't get
carte blanche to commit crimes against someone just because they have committed crimes against you in the past.
She would have been well within her rights to notify the police that he had firearms. She was not within her rights to break into his apartment, steal his possessions and turn them over to the police herself. That is a crime and people who commit crimes and admit them to the police and present evidence of their crimes to the authorities are going to be prosecuted.
Maybe her motives were pure, maybe they weren't, but none of that makes what she did legal.
And how she is being treated has nothing to do where this occurred. Breaking in to someone's residence and stealing from them is a crime anywhere.
Don't get the idea that you can act as the police, or in place of the authorities. If you try to take the law into your own hands, the odds are you will be committing a criminal act. Know the laws and follow them or you will end up a criminal.