independence
Regular Member
A fellow employee who I was meeting for the first time came to my office this morning. We have an extremely relaxed firearms policy at work, and I was CCing. He noted the ammo on my desk and we talked firearms for a couple of minutes before he suddenly exclaims that he carries a pistol and pulls it from concealment. He removes the mag in a rather hurried and "watch this" manner. While I'm deciding if this is cool or not, he quickly turns the muzzle directly at me at point blank range and racks the slide to *remove a chambered round!
I am very angry with him but even more angry with myself for not calling him on it. Instead, I foolishly restrained myself in some twisted version of politeness. I would place the emoticon of banging one's head against a wall here, but it would not even to begin to suffice. Later, during our conversation I discovered that he is former member of the military with many years of elite service. I have only been into firearms for a short time, but I was trained from the beginning on the four rules of gun safety.
I don't know what else to say. I wish I could tell you that this is the first time anything like this has ever happened, but it isn't. Why are people so stupid, even with military training? Why am I such a gutless coward that I can't even make myself do or say something in response in such a situation? Apparently, I don't value my own life enough...
Both times this has happened, it was after the person in question learned that I was a firearms enthusiast because of something I said, etc. I'm starting to rethink things now: There may be a downside to discussing my interest in firearms with others. I can now say accurately, that I have only ever had "good guys" point guns at me, and statistically, my chances of be killed by a "good guy" at this point may be higher than getting killed by a "bad guy". Also, I was CCing both times, but by others knowing that I have an interest in firearms and potentially carry daily, it about the same as OC. I OC a lot when not at work, but is this going to attract more "hey, look at this" situations? What if the next time I end up shooting somebody, because I thought they were about to shoot me? In today's situation, he had a laptop with him and I saw the desktop which had a picture of his little baby daughter. All I could think of is, "What if I had shot him dead and this little girl was fatherless?"
For the future:
First off, I am removing the ammo from my desk as we speak. Secondly, next time this happens, at the very least I am going to jump out of the way of the muzzle as fast as I can. Please give your two cents on how you would have handled the situation. I figure I will also get a lot of reprimands for my stupidity in how I (didn't) handled the situation. I deserve them. Very angry with myself. What exactly is this an indication of? I fear, it may be an indication of a non-confrontational and sheep mindset. That's a mindset I purport to detest.
*The reason he (recklessly) removed a round from his pistol was to compare it to a round on my desk.
I am very angry with him but even more angry with myself for not calling him on it. Instead, I foolishly restrained myself in some twisted version of politeness. I would place the emoticon of banging one's head against a wall here, but it would not even to begin to suffice. Later, during our conversation I discovered that he is former member of the military with many years of elite service. I have only been into firearms for a short time, but I was trained from the beginning on the four rules of gun safety.
I don't know what else to say. I wish I could tell you that this is the first time anything like this has ever happened, but it isn't. Why are people so stupid, even with military training? Why am I such a gutless coward that I can't even make myself do or say something in response in such a situation? Apparently, I don't value my own life enough...
Both times this has happened, it was after the person in question learned that I was a firearms enthusiast because of something I said, etc. I'm starting to rethink things now: There may be a downside to discussing my interest in firearms with others. I can now say accurately, that I have only ever had "good guys" point guns at me, and statistically, my chances of be killed by a "good guy" at this point may be higher than getting killed by a "bad guy". Also, I was CCing both times, but by others knowing that I have an interest in firearms and potentially carry daily, it about the same as OC. I OC a lot when not at work, but is this going to attract more "hey, look at this" situations? What if the next time I end up shooting somebody, because I thought they were about to shoot me? In today's situation, he had a laptop with him and I saw the desktop which had a picture of his little baby daughter. All I could think of is, "What if I had shot him dead and this little girl was fatherless?"
For the future:
First off, I am removing the ammo from my desk as we speak. Secondly, next time this happens, at the very least I am going to jump out of the way of the muzzle as fast as I can. Please give your two cents on how you would have handled the situation. I figure I will also get a lot of reprimands for my stupidity in how I (didn't) handled the situation. I deserve them. Very angry with myself. What exactly is this an indication of? I fear, it may be an indication of a non-confrontational and sheep mindset. That's a mindset I purport to detest.
*The reason he (recklessly) removed a round from his pistol was to compare it to a round on my desk.
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