My wife and I come from two different worlds, I grew up in the south around firearms, she grew up in Boston and never saw a gun until she met me. My firearms have been a sticking point since we've been married, and every time I purchase a new one I have to hear "Yey, another useless gun." That changed tonight.
We were lounging around our apartment when we heard a pretty nasty argument going on in the parking lot. I went out on our balcony to see what was going on and it seemed to be just some drunk soldier yelling about dumb stuff, as they tend to do. The other guy, he'll be guy from here on, with the drunk was trying to calm him down, but Drunky wouldn't have it until he got into his car. Guy starts trying to convince Drunky to let him drive Drunky home, so I shrug it off as it seems to have calmed down and go back inside.
A couple of minutes later there's a third voice and the yelling has started in earnest again so I go out and look again. This time there's a third dude ("Dude") who's trying to talk Drunky down, but this apparently agitates Drunky even more and the shirts come off. A security guard who got off shift pulls into the lot and starts to intervene, she gets in between Drunky and Dude and tells them to stop and seperate. As Dude grabs his shirt off the ground Drunky punches Dude in the face and the guard pushes Drunky away from Dude. Dude starts walking back into the building and I ask him if he's alright and if he wants me to call the cops, he says he's fine and walks into his apartment.
Guard tells Drunky she doesn't know who he is but he needs to leave now, he throws some nasty words at her and gets back in his car. Guy's still trying to convince Drunky to let him drive him home as Drunky keeps saying "F You, I F'ing hate all of you." Another neighbor, call him Alpha, comes downstairs to see what's going on. Then Drunky says "You know what, F' YOU" and I see him lean across his car through the back window and grab something. Next thing anyone knows Drunky's got a foot long knife in Guy's face and starts to wave it around going from Guy to the guard to Alpha. I ran into the bedroom and grabbed my Glock 21 and headed downstairs while telling the wife to call 911.
I've got my Glock at the low ready as I come down stairs and head to the group telling Guy and Alpha to move out of the way. The guard sprays Drunky in the face with riot mace and he somehow manages to get in his car and starts it. Alpha sees my wife on the balcony and yells out the license plate number as I move around five feet from the front drivers side of the car, just off set so if he tried to gun forward I could move out of the way, and yell for him to get out of the car. Guy starts his car and moves it behind Drunky's car blocking him in. We yell for him to get out of the car, realizing he couldn't go anywhere he gets out of his car. As he got out I had my sights at center mass quickly checking his hands for the knife which he'd left in the car so I lowered my weapon as Alpha and Guy move in. Dude shows back up and Drunky moves into the middle of the street. The guard grabs her cuffs and tells him to get on the ground, when he refuses I yell at him to get on the ground and Dude takes him down from behind kicking the back of his knee. Once on the ground they get the cuffs on and pull him to the curb.
As everyone catches their breath I stuck the gun in my pocket with the butt visible (left the holster upstairs) and the cops begin to show up. The first cop asks, directing toward Drunky, "Is this the guy with the knife?" and everyone says yes. Then he asked who had the gun, I said I do, he asked where it's at and I lifted my shirt more and turned my hip toward him. He said to let him see it and asked what it was, I told him it was a Glock21 .45 as he pulls it from my pocket, he walks ten feet away, clears it, and sets it to the side. He asked me why I had it, told him I saw Drunky pull the knife from upstairs so I grabbed my gun and came downstairs to help. He talked to the senior officer on scene and had me walk away from the group to give me the glock back and told me to take it back upstairs. I did so and went back down and gave my full statement. They took down my information and told me to have a nice night.
When I got back upstairs the wife was waiting and hugged me. "And that's why I carry, because a situation can go from bad to worse in the blink of an eye." In her defense, this was the first time she had seen a situation like that and made her realize they're not as rare as she thought. She said she'll never question my carrying and my shooting hobby again, so I guess we'll see how long that lasts.
