elder999,
When I was about 15 years old, a drunk beside the road shot at my cousin, sister, and myself, while we were in the field by the house coming from fishing (and yes the cops caught them after we ran home and told our parents.)
While in college we had a bugler stealing from the house while my parents were gone now and then (same person and we had a good idea who he was.) So one January, on a bitter cold morning, we hid the cars and waited with the lights out. I had a Colt Agent .38 (yea, a gun nut I was back in college, poor one but still into guns.) J.D. was supposed to go out the back and I go out the front and catch him in the breeze way, which was locked. Well to make a long story short, he did come, J.D. though was on the pot (yes, in the bathroomÂ… Brother Murphy has a way with screwing up plans), and the guy came up the driveway, went around back, broken in the locked door, and started to take things.
So I gave the warning, J.D., unnamed, went out the back, and I jumped out the front with my .38. All I could think of saying was, ‘Just stay’. Well he looked down the barrel and sure enough he ‘just stayed’. Sat down when told to and the Deputy Sherriff came and took him away,
Then in the Virgin Islands, on my honeymoon, in Charlotte, a purse snatcher grabbed this woman’s purse and ran. My wife shouted and pointed. So I took off my hat and sun glasses and ran after him. A guy in front of him grabbed him in a bear hug just as I caught up and I put a wrist lock on him. We struggled a bit, brought him down, then he tried to get up and we brought him down again. He kept screaming, “let go of my hand” (yes I hurt him a might with that lock.) A VERY LARGE cop came (they pack Glocks there, BTW), and took him off. My wife found the purse and gave it back to the woman (she was on one of those ship cruises.)
Once, at a disco who the manager was one of our TDK students, a group of would-be thugs would not obey the rules of having t-shirts on (that is no tank tops) and when the manager told them to hit the road they refused. The manager, a very good buddy of mine who was also in TKD, and myself stood baring the way back into the club. Yes we could have had a fight there but the toughs, five of them, decided to leave. My buddy and I, after a few drinks, went home by going out the back door instead of the front. We didnÂ’t want to get shot going out that front one!
So you see, I have been in a few such things. No sawed off shotgun, no gun play, but I have been in a few. They happen fast but most crooks are not well trained, if at all, and are very preoccupided. They are shocked when someone takes fast action against them.
The key is to look for those openings. The videos of robberies and street fights are very educational in this respect. You can see just how things go down, where it's wise to do nothing, and where there are openings for takng action. And that is what we look for. Not the first opportunity to take action, but good ones.
Deaf