Close Encounters

[unique]

Here's my last encounter.
It was over twenty years ago, I was divorced and living in an upstairs apartment in the city.  I shared a common entrance with the young guy downstairs who was, at best, an alcoholic.
Several times he had mentioned to me that someone had been “stealing his stuff”, I didn't think much of it until one night probably around 2:00AM he was pounding on my door saying something about knowing who was stealing his stuff.  I got out of bed, pulled on my jeans, stuck my Colt Officer's model in my back pocket, and went to the door.  I'm left handed and the door open in with the knob on the right, so as I opened the door, my left arm was behind the door.  I opened the door and there he was, with a revolver in his right hand, pointing at the ground.  All I could think of was that he thought I was the one stealing his stuff and he was going to shoot me.  I pulled the Colt, raising it behind the door, and started stepping back to get the gun around the door.  At that point I knew I was going to shoot him.  He started raising the gun, but in an odd way, kind of cross body, pointing to his left, then I saw the saddle ring at the base of the grip, it was a pellet gun.  With my right hand I grabbed the barrel of the gun and took it away from him.  He explained that he wanted me to keep the gun for him so whoever was taking his stuff wouldn't get it.  He never saw my gun, I kept it behind the door, so he never knew how close he came to dying, but I'll never forget it.
My point in all of this?  We all tend to practice for the direct confrontation, the mugger, the car jacker, right and wrong, black and white.  It's been my experience that confrontations are more often gray, and I often read them wrong, but we don't train for that.  We pull over to help someone with a flat tire and he walks to the car with a tire iron in his hand and we're conditioned to think “car jacking”, not that his kid put the wrong tire iron in the car and he's mad as hell and wants to show you what is kid did.

[tombogan03884]

My point in all of this?  We all tend to practice for the direct confrontation, the mugger, the car jacker, right and wrong, black and white.  It's been my experience that confrontations are more often gray, and I often read them wrong, but we don't train for that.  We pull over to help someone with a flat tire and he walks to the car with a tire iron in his hand and we're conditioned to think “car jacking”, not that his kid put the wrong tire iron in the car and he's mad as hell and wants to show you what is kid did.

Very good point. I might have shot the guy with the knife in your first example and had no legal problems with it, but the others show the ambiguity of many situations we find ourselves confronted with. This is why knowledge of self defense LAW is as important as training in self defense shooting, it's also why we have to be AWARE of whats going on around us at all times.

[cookie62]

I agree, Awareness, whether when armed or not gives you more options. If you can see it coming, you can avoid it most of the time. There may be times when all the warning in the world won't get you out of a tight spot. But if you can see it coming it will give you a little more time to react and weigh your options.

[m25operator]

I have had a few encounters, and I will give 2 to start.

1st, I'm 6 years old, dads away from home, and my mother wakes me up and my little sister who is still a toddler. There is someone outside our front door, vigorously trying to open the front door. We as a group approach the front door, My mother has a single shot .22 rifle, and I don't know the maker, We are witnessing from 5' away someone wrestling our front door lock. My mom, is telling the would be intruder to go away, during the discussion, the .22 go's off, we heard feet pounding away for several seconds. A small hole in the floor, due to my mothers nervousness, and no worse for wear, I'm sure that's where my first thoughts of being prepared began.

2nd, My father and his business partner bought land in east Texas for deer hunting, We had quite a time there, and my fathers business partner still owns it. One year many years ago, Like 25 years ago, My father and I arrived for opening weekend to find our ancient trailer home had been burglarized and vandalized. We made simple repairs to allow us to stay, and called the local constabulary. We were there for 4 days. On the last day in the afternoon, we were getting ready to go back home, we had the tractor running to charge the battery, and my truck would not start, my dad was in the cab running the starter while I was under the hood looking for the source of the problem. All of a sudden I hear a car door shut, I look up and there is a black chevy station wagon, no logos, and a big guy standing beside it, checkered shirt and blue jeans.  Our land was at the end of the road, You would pass lot's  property on the way, We had just been taken advantage of, the tractor  running masked the sound of the approaching vehicle, and I was concentrated on my truck not starting. I looked up, saw a stranger and took cover behind my truck and drew my Gold cup, aimed at the stranger and said, Who Are You, He said, " I'm from the Sheriffs department, and I'm here to get an offense report" I answered back " where is your badge and uniform?"
He said" My badge is right here, and we don't  wear uniforms during deer season" He produced his badge and I apologized...
He was  good natured and said the land owner before us came out with a 12 gauge. All was well and no shots fired.

Lesson learned, situational awareness is key, the tractor running kept us from hearing the approaching vehicle, you should have seen my fathers eyes when I drew down. I was definitely in condition orange when this went down, and was young, thank God I was a faithful follower of Uncle Jeff at that time, finger off the trigger but ready to do harm.

[SlickRob]

  My encounter happened about  15 years ago, before I had my permit.  I was on vacation and had gone to N. Carolina to visit a friend.  We were on our way to meet her sister in Florida.  We had my young son, and her young nephews asleep in the backseat.
  She was needing a pit stop and a soda so I pulled into a Quickie Mart somewhere in Georgia.  It was 1:30 am, but this was a very busy store.  It was well lit, and I pulled into the only parking space left.  She went in, and there were at least a half dozen customers in line at the register.  She was going to take her turn at the wheel, and I moved to the passenger side.  I was standing there with the door open.
   The car on our driver’s side left, and was replaced a minute later with a car full of “rowdy teenagers”.  One went in the store, and the rest were being loud and very abusive to anyone around.  I was waiting there and wishing my friend would hurry up so we could get out of there.  It turned out she, and most of the other customers had retreated to let Mr. A-hole leave the store.  He came out passed the stuff to his companions, and then eyed me.  “What the hell are you looking at!” And he came around the back of the car towards me.
  I had no gun, but I did have a collapsible baton in the glove box.  I surprised myself at how quickly I retrieved it, and held it behind me.  He never saw it, but knew I had something.  That ended it.  Without a word he returned to the car and they left, burning rubber as they did.
  So it was really just all B.S., and some “kids” having some “fun”.   As soon as it looked like it was getting serious they booked.  I had always thought myself to be a careful person, especially after becoming a parent.  This caused me to seriously reevaluate. 

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[gunman1911]

My first time was when I was working for a security company that had a parpmacey in River Rouge Mi. It was on the 3rd of July  and hot as hell out the store was set up in the back of the parking lot facing out with two doors  about 6 feet apart  I was close to the door about 10 feet away when I heard pop,pop,pop at first I thought it was just firecrackers and I went to the door and looked out side and saw a man in a 4 door ford with his hand out the window shooting at another car and saw the bullet stroke the driver of the other car in the head. I pulled my S&W model 10 from a flap holster and told everybody to get down and I hit the burglar alarm button  and went to the door  and started to air tne revolver up when a siren blasted  and a voice came over a load speaker for the shooter to put down his gun and I saw the gun dropped and put mine away. 6 moths later I testified what I had seen and the guy got life ,I was 20 years old and I'm 52 now I have pulled my weapon many times and had to pull he trigger twice. Its not fun. And it makes you old fast. And yes their really is the "Mark of Cain".