Arthur Baldwin allegedly fires shots, tries to grab student selling discount cards

Big pic below.

Most of us don't enjoy dealing with door-to-door salespersons. Even when they don't show up during dinner (which they usually do), they disrupt your personal time and space in irritating ways.

But Arthur Baldwin allegedly took this dislike way too far... even before he grabbed his gun.

According to the Colorado Springs Gazette, three male students from Coronado High School selling discount cards as a football-team fundraiser made the innocent mistake of knocking on Baldwin's door. He was reportedly drunk when he answered and even though he actually bought a card, he subsequently grew angry -- so much so that he's said to have tried to grab one of the teens.

"I thought he was going to kill us," one of the students told a responding police officer, "so we just ran."

Trouble is, Baldwin followed, armed with a gun that his wife had hidden in a closet, reportedly in the hope that he wouldn't find it after he'd had a few.

Whether Baldwin actually fired the gun in the students' direction or up in the air is a matter of debate. But he was shocked at being busted. In the Colorado Springs Police Department arrest affidavit quoted by the Gazette, which documented him being booked on suspicion of felony menacing, he points out that "I didn't even shoot anybody," and says, "I don't know why you can't defend yourself."

Of course, self-defense typically requires that a person be under threat from more than a sales pitch. Here's a larger look at Baldwin's mug shot:

Arthur Baldwin.

More from our Colorado Crimes archive: "Rebecca Ward after drunkenly crashing into three cars: 'I am so f*cked.'"