A 71-year-old Austintown woman coming out of a Boardman grocery store may have been surprised to find police waiting for her, wanting to know why there was a gun sitting on the hood of her SUV.

A man parking his car at the Meijer on Route 224 Thursday afternoon told police he spotted the semi-automatic pistol on the hood of the Chevy Blazer in front of his car.

The man says he picked up the weapon, removed the magazine, and locked the slide to make it safe before calling the police.

When the Blazer’s owner came out from shopping, police asked her about the gun. She told officers that her husband has several firearms and believed this one belonged to him.

A phone call to the husband confirmed that the gun was his and he thinks he must have left it on the hood of the SUV when he was in the garage and forgot about it.

According to property records, the couple live about eight miles from the store, meaning the woman would have driven about fifteen minutes with the gun on the hood.

Police placed the gun in the trunk of the Blazer so the woman could bring it home safely.