What the HELL is this thing?!

I just captured this spider in my gun room tonight. I walked in and turned on the light and there is was on my bayonet peg board. As you can tell by the holes on the peg board that are 1" apart, it's over 3" across.





Anyone have any idea what it is? I wasn't sure if I could kill it with the fly swatter or if I needed to get the Uzi out of the safe. Even Lagniappe took one look at it and said "Oh HELL no!" as he turned and beat it back down the stairs.

I would have taken more/better pictures but it was starting to move so I had to drop the camera and capture it before it got away into some part of the house where I coulnd't find it. So I trapped it in a 7-11 coffee cup and released it outside.

Someone please tell me that it:
a. wasn't poisonous;
b. doesn't have a lot of kin nearby.