I’ll second this, from firsthand knowledge. So far only one time I’ve had to show someone my firearm’s business end up close. Been carrying since before Texas issued CHLs.
-JR
I’ll concede my error then. Especially since you’re ex LEO (right?). I was trying to make a point about (my perception of) the handgun’s effect on trivial situations like above. Its mere presence makes it imperative that no up-close arguments take place. The potential escalation* were it to be noticed makes the original disagreement trivial, and one must back down from everything. Carrying it actually changed my behavior. FWIW: I’m very non-confrontational, but having the gun made me more timid, if that makes any sense.
*He could have one too, or grab mine
You might be looking for “discreet” rather than “timid”. But yes, I know exactly what you mean.
Some stories from my brief Armored career.
We’re making a stop at an inner city grocery store. We’re parked by a door that goes into the office area, still on the front of the building, but about 60 feet from the main entrance, and partly blocked by the old style delivery rails to deliver stuff to people’s cars when they pull up. My partner is in the back unloading their coin delivery onto a hand truck. I’m driving. I see these two 20-something white guys walk across the parking lot, looking at our truck occasionally. They get right up to the front door, talk a bit, then start walking toward our truck, trying to look around it along both sides, because they can see and hear that the back door is open, but cannot see my partner. I yell back to close the door right now, two men walking along the right side. He does so, takes a brief glance to see them, then starts heading rapidly around the other side toward the door to the store. These two yahoos walk around the back of the truck and then straight towards him. Now at this point, he is backed into a corner with only the door to escape through. Wall on one side, truck and rails on the other, rails to his back, idiots to the front. He reaches the door as the two get even with my door, one right below me, one next to the building, like they’re trying to corral my partner and prevent escape. At that point he lets go of the cart, puts his hand on his pistol and draws it half way out of the holster. They visibly react (shock) and then the one closer to the wall looks up at me. He sees me already turned toward the door, one hand below the window (it was on the door handle and my foot was on the door, ready to kick it straight into the back of the head of the guy below me) and my pistol drawn in my other hand. Man, his eyes went wide, and he said “whoa” or “fuck” or something like that, at which point his partner directly below me turned and saw me ready to go. They put their hands up like “ok, we’re not doing anything” and started babbling about how they were just trying to get into the store. I yelled (though the glass) that I saw them walk straight past the front door, so get the fuck out of here right now! They did indeed fuck right off.
I’m at a downtown bank on a busy street. I’m loading over $100,000 onto a hand truck to take into the bank. This guy is watching me from the corner about 100 feet away. When I close the door and start walking into the building, he is on me like nothing and following me into the building way too closely. As I open the inner doors, he is right on top of my cart and his hand starts to reach out. I stop dead, grab my pistol and pop the snap to be ready to draw it, looking him right in the eye. He backs up hands up and says he was just walking into the building. I tell him to stay there until I’m in the bank. Then while I am in the bank he just keeps loitering right outside, so I alerted the bank guard and he called the Police. I was in their bank vault for a while, and when I come out, he tells me that the Police rolled by very quickly, grabbed the guy and removed him from the scene (in maybe 7-8 minutes top).
My partner is in a parking ramp servicing their machines. Five homeless guys come along and start yanking on all of my truck’s doors and jumping up and down on the truck. Well, as long as the doors hold, and they should, no problem. But I’m thoroughly fucked if one of the back doors pop open. So I draw my weapon and hold it up with a :dubious: look, just so they can see it. They jump off the truck and wander off, high fiving each other, whooping and hollering about “what if we’d gotten it open!”
We serviced this one ATM at 8am on Friday morning specifically because it was in a very bad neighborhood. It was also a cashed service machine, so we’d be on our knees in the back of the place trying to put $20,000 in loose bills into the fucker while stupid people would wander over and try to reach over the top of us to get into a cooler, then wondering why we’d get hot about it. (Hint, don’t come up behind an armed guy with a lot of cash and then lean over him. He doesn’t know you’re not planning to smack him in the back of his head.) I’m in the truck, my partner is inside. These three hispanic guys walk across the street, looking around. Just the look of them, I knew we were in trouble. I try to reach my partner on the radio. Dumbfuck left it in the truck. I reach for the route cellphone. Asshole took it, even though he has his own cellphone, I don’t have one, and procedure is to leave it in the truck. Oh shit. I can only hope he’s on his game. The three guys go in. About 60 seconds later, two of them come out. One stands about 60 feet directly in front of our truck watching me, the other one goes out to the street and starts looking both ways. I pulled out my pistol and held it up. I held the radio in front of my face and pretended to talk into it. For about three minutes. They go back inside. My heart sinks. About 30 seconds, they come wandering out, nothing in hand, and walk off. Another minute later my partner comes out, looks around, and gets back in the truck. He saw them come in, immediately threw everything in the bag, slammed shut the ATM and stood on the bag, back to the cooler, gun drawn, both hands on it (shooter positions) and pointed up. He waited a while before going back in and completing service of the machine.
Tax season that year, our bosses asked us repeatedly to go into another bad neighborhood and put $340,000 in cash into an ATM inside a tax place there. We said we’d only go if they sent along a third man (so two go inside with the money) WITH A SHOTGUN. They refused. Later we found out that THREE management people went there, one with a shotgun, and all three went in to service the machine. Fuck, that’s a lot of cash to be carrying in. If people had gotten any whiff of what we were putting in that building, we’d have been under seige. (On Broadway in North Minneapolis for those from the area).
And yet, there were still plenty of anti-gunners who thought it was absolutely inexcusable that we (non-police officers) were allowed to carry guns. How dare we! It just incites the criminals! :rolleyes:
I carried a concealed .38 into a tattoo parlor very late at night(which the owner of the parlor had loaned me) because it looked like a robbery was about to take place,I didn’t have to brandish the gun because the would be bandits took off as soon as i came through the door…not that my presence scared the bejeezus out of them,we figured they didnt like their odds so much after I came in.
Before I came in it was the owner,his wife(who was behind the counter with her own gun) and their 20 something female employee against 5 young men aged 15-25 I’d guess.Pretty intense moment none the less.