Bad night to take the small gun...

[austin-tatious]

Thanks for the story. If anyone ever asks if I got my gun the next words out of my mouth with be an admonition not an affirmation.

When my wife asked in public once, she got the admonition. She doesn't ask in public anymore. The fewer people who know I carry, the better for all involved. I have told one friend I have a CHL as part of encouraging him to get one. In so doing he also received the admonition to never ask if I have it on me.

[Fangs]

I would have never guessed...

give the guns to your dad until you grow up enough to figure this out. IMHO.

My dad died when I was 11.

TexasAggie, there were 3 guys all similar in size to me. My friend's a little guy who was too scared to box my 12-year-old little brother when we had gloves and headgear. My concern was mostly from Dark, the guy who I considered the biggest threat due to his demeanor, and who also kept resting his hand on his pocket knife. Now it could have been that he's just in a habit of holding it when not otherwise engaged in some activity, or he was considering pulling it out. I really didn't want to find out.

I don't know if I didn't explain it well or if ya'll are just pulling my leg, but not one of the guys who came through that door was my friend. I knew the girls because they had dated my friend, and I'd met one of the guys once at a party while playing a drinking game. To make it sound like I purposely choose to hang out with guys like that on a regular basis is a bit of a stretch.

[lonewolf]

It'll all be fine, amigo. Just take whatever useful productive information you can and apply it where you can. If we all had the same information/experience/background etc, there would never be a need to ask questions. Everything in your situation worked out OK. Think about what happened and what you can learn from it and apply it going forward.

Please keep asking questions on the forum, since all questions are indeed relevant. If you have a question, chances are someone else may be wondering the same thing as well. Or its something they have not considered before. That's certainly happened to me. Opinions, even divergent ones, are valuable and give us a chance to expand our own knowledge. If you're not comfortable posting on the public side, you can always PM someone.

Based on your original post, I would say that you are certainly not out looking for trouble. You just found yourself in a potentially bad situation. It happens. Hindsight is 20/20. You lived (and so did everyone else,) you learned, and now you can carry on.

Keep the eyes and ears open, keep up the good work, and just do the best you can.

[Excaliber]

It'll all be fine, amigo. Just take whatever useful productive information you can and apply it where you can. If we all had the same information/experience/background etc, there would never be a need to ask questions. Everything in your situation worked out OK. Think about what happened and what you can learn from it and apply it going forward.

Please keep asking questions on the forum, since all questions are indeed relevant. If you have a question, chances are someone else may be wondering the same thing as well. Or its something they have not considered before. That's certainly happened to me. Opinions, even divergent ones, are valuable and give us a chance to expand our own knowledge. If you're not comfortable posting on the public side, you can always PM someone.

Based on your original post, I would say that you are certainly not out looking for trouble. You just found yourself in a potentially bad situation. It happens. Hindsight is 20/20. You lived (and so did everyone else,) you learned, and now you can carry on.

Keep the eyes and ears open, keep up the good work, and just do the best you can.

Well said, lonewolf. These are very important points that we mustn't lose sight of.

We're all learners here, and sharing real life experiences as Fangs has done so we can think them through over and over on Monday morning is a critical part of our search for knowledge.

All the should'a could'a would'a's with the knowledge gained from post incident critiques are great for next time, but we wouldn't get the chance to figure those out if someone didn't live through an event in real time and share the facts with us, warts and all.

[Dragonfighter]

Planning in the realm of what if has both the effect of cementing reactions and psychologically preparing you for the horrible eventuality should you be forced to take a life. Having the guts to relate a personal anecdote like this provides the rest of us an invaluable tool for the rest of us to consider in the clarity of our imaginations what if, and what we'd do. Thanks Fangs.

[karder]

Fangs, as I stated earlier, I think you did fine. Sure, somethings could have been done differently, but it is always easy to break down a situation and evaluate it after the situation has long ended. In your case, no one got hurt, everyone went home, and that was the goal. The only thing I would caution you against is being too "jumpy" or quick to grab for a gun. That snubby should come out only when it is time for deadly force, and you were not even close to that situation from what I am reading.
Here is a similar story to yours. I have a brother who is quite a bit younger than I, and when he was in college, almost exactly your age, he found himself with an angry ex-girlfriend, who started getting her other guy friends to threaten him. Now of course, this is high-tech threatening, text messages, voice-mails, myspace attacks. The main guy, we will call him REX, was relentless. These went on an on until my brother was becoming a basket case. I told him that anyone who will attack you on myspace, is an immature moron and is blowing hot air. I tried to explain to him that people who are going to kick your foot usually don't tell you before hand, but rather they save it as a little surprise. He was not buying it and thought he was a dead man walking. Well one day I am with him and he gets text number 15 for the day, it was from Rex who said he was heading to a local bar with 7 of his friends, they wanted to "have a talk" with my brother, and if he did not show up, they were gonna come looking for him. While my brother was in full scale freak out mode I took the phone out of his hand, and shot a text back, "ok, see you there".
I told my brother that this was idiotic and we were going to talk to these guys and get it stopped. Just to be safe, I called one of my other friends to go with us. He is a really big guy that I work out with and when I explained the situation to him, he agreed that we were looking at bluff, and no one would show up. I did not have any weapons and my nervous factor was about a 1 on a scale of 10.
We get to the bar an hour early and get a table. This is a well known biker bar which some college kids frequent on the weekends. I ride, and just by chance two of my riding friends, in full Harley-Davidson dress, showed up, saw me and promptly pulled two more chairs up to our table. With in 15 more minutes three guys from the place I work came in (blue-collar mechanic types), totally by chance, and pulled up another table and sat with us. I did not mention that we were waiting for anyone as I was totally confident that no one was going to show up.
Well, the dreaded time arrived. At the "stroke of midnight" so to speak, a woman, who my brother identified as Rex's girlfriend, walks in through the front door, scans the room, makes eye-contact with my brother, and quickly walks out the back door. "hmm, that was interesting" I think. So we wait for a minute, then 5 minutes, then 30 minutes, and finally an hour and a half later, I decide it is time to go home. No one ever showed up, and my brother never got another text, e-mail, phone call or any contact from any of them ever again.
I know this is a long story, but the point is, these types of situations happen more often than you think. Some angry girl, gets a bunch of her male friends (who usually want to get some action from the angry girl) and uses them to bully someone else, but it is usually just simple female manipulation coupled with male bullying. They don't want to fight, they don't want to get hit, they just want to impress the girl and "get rewarded". Don't sweat these types of guys, but don't over react by shooting some horny meatball in the head unless it is truly unavoidable. Like dogs, bone-heads smell fear and run in packs. Honestly, as a much older, more experienced guy than you, I would have informed the group of moron kids that they were trespassing and to leave immediately. As tough as "Dark" probably thinks he is, he was not tough enough to come by himself. If he sees that you are not intimidated, and that you are really serious, I think you will see the tough exterior start to crack a little. He is going to quickly realize he is the one with a problem on his hands. It's the psychology of self-defense my friend.

[USA1]

[Fangs]

You're going to hate me resurrecting this thread... but oh well.

I ran into Manon today, one of the girls from that night. We talked for a bit and during the conversation I asked her why they had come over that night.

Turns out that I was right. They were all drinking, both the girls were ranting about how they were mad at Andrew, and then Manon said jokingly, "Hey let's go over there and kick his butt." Well everyone else thought it was a great idea and that led to our wonderful time together. She said they hadn't expected me to be there, and that the guys "didn't have the guts" to carry through on it once they saw Andrew wasn't alone.

Dark was a security guard at the time and had told them that if they got caught he would get them out of it.

Apparently the big guy is gay and thought I was cute.


So, there's the rest of the story.

[USA1]

Apparently the big guy is gay and thought I was cute.

I hate when that happens.

[gigag04]

Completely unrelated...

Do you carry when you play beer pong?

[Fangs]

Completely unrelated...

Do you carry when you play beer pong?

No, unless you count my pocket knife.

[Kythas]

If you have to think about whether you should shoot or not, then you shouldn't..

This reminds me of something my FTO told me my first day out of the academy. His words have served me well ever since then, and I'll relay them to you now:

"If you ever find yourself in a situation where you don't know whether or not you should draw your weapon, you draw it. The last thing you want is to be in a situation where the bad guy has a gun in his hand and you don't. If you ever find yourself in a situation where you don't know whether or not you should shoot, don't shoot. Firing your weapon is always a last resort and there should be no doubt in your mind that's the only option you have remaining at the time you pull the trigger."

[Excaliber]

If you have to think about whether you should shoot or not, then you shouldn't..

This reminds me of something my FTO told me my first day out of the academy. His words have served me well ever since then, and I'll relay them to you now:

"If you ever find yourself in a situation where you don't know whether or not you should draw your weapon, you draw it. The last thing you want is to be in a situation where the bad guy has a gun in his hand and you don't. If you ever find yourself in a situation where you don't know whether or not you should shoot, don't shoot. Firing your weapon is always a last resort and there should be no doubt in your mind that's the only option you have remaining at the time you pull the trigger."

The FTO's rule of thumb aligns pretty well with most of the laws on use of force for police officers. The suggestion on when to pull the trigger transitions well too, but the guidance on when to draw can get folks into some hot water if they haven't taken the time to learn when a gun canand cannot be lawfully displayed by someone without law enforcement authority.