Because they can go to the police and say he threatened them for no reason. Happened to a friend in Wyoming.
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Exactly. If you get involved in an incident, you are better off self reporting, whether or not it even rises to the threshold where the officer would write a report, you are more likely ime ceteris paribus to be given the benefit of the doubt if you self report X, then if you report X in response to somebody else claiming first that you did Y and you are on the defensive at that point. It's calle CYA and MANY people have reported stuff to me for exactly that reason.
Those of us who follow the law and do the right thing, and I assume you are in that group, need not fear people reporting to the police what we do. We need fear people falsely reporting that we did something, that we did not do.
If you OC a firearm, you should at least consider and prepare yourself for what you would do if somebody LIES and claims for example you drew your firearm and pointed it at them. It's difficult w.o witnesses to prove a negative, for instance, nad if there are no witnesses, false claims can hurt you. People get arrested and sometimes even convicted based on people who lie about an incident for whatever reason (revenge, etc.)
Personally, my defense - if there is no video or audio of the incident in question and no forensics- is my credibility. I can fall back on 20+ yrs w/o any complaint of X. I've had defense attorneys tell me they always know when they get one of my reports that it's 100% truthful. If there is exonerating evidence in their client's favor, they know I'll document it, even though it hurts the case for prosecution, because my job is to be truthful and unbiased, not to WIN a case. Heck, I've had defense attorneys tell me when their client claims X contra my claim of Y that despite their job to advocate for their client, they know damn well Y isn;'t true. That's the benefit of honesty. Engage in it for long enough and you build up a near impenetrable reputation. People will always give you the benefit of the doubt. That's a huge benefit in life.
There are few things, if anythingm, more important than your character and credibility. If I respond to a scene where I have conflicting reports, one of the first thing I do is database checks on the persons reporting. If one person has numerous convictions for crimes of dishonesty, to include false reporting, and the other has none, and there is no forensics to support or refute either story, guess who gets the benfit of the doubt? In many respects past bad acts are NOT admissible or even disclosable in a criminal trial (sometimes they are if they go towards MO or if they can be used to refute a defendant's testimony, etc.), but they are EXTREMELY relevant in offier's decision to arrest and/or file charges and in prosecutors decision whether or not to charge an individual. I have seen this countless times in the field
So, live your life clean, establish a good reputation, free from blemishes of dishonesty and hope that no nefarious souls are going to call police and make a FALSE report that you did something evil.
And imo, the single most important factor in whether people are going to do that is how you treat them. If you are polite and respectful to people, even if you are doing something they don't like, they are less likely to make a false claim against you. It's certainly worked for me. It's not FOOLPROOF, but it's highly effective. even if they are being jerks, asaultive towards you, whatever, BE THE BETTER PERSON AND TREAT THEM RESPECTFULLY. I've had guys LITERALLY thank me for being so nice to them even AFTER I h ad to use force against them (like striking them with a baton) because they know they did a bad act, but I don't pile on verbal abuse and still call them sir, etc. It makes a HUGE diference in wheether people will make false claims against you.
Again, if you carry OC, consider that false claims CAN be made against you and could put you on the defensive and could even result in an arrest or even remotely possible a conviction DESPITE the fact that you did nothing wrong.
It's a risk you assume when OCing, because a person making a claim you used the firearm incorrectly will at least have evidence that you HAD the firearm in your possession. It *is* a risk we take when OCing. It is substantially less likely to occur if you have a good rep and if you treat people kindly and respectfully
Do the right thing, treat people with respect and kindness and you are very unlikely to have to face such a horrible event, though