self preservation
Regular Member
This incident happened a few months back but I have been waiting to make sure no legal action came from it before posting. I feel I'm in the clear so I'll share. In October I was changing the oil in my truck. When I went to put the new oil filter back on I discovered that the parts house had given me the wrong filter. Of course my truck has no oil in it at this point so I couldn't drive it. The parts house is about a 15 minute walk so I decided to walk there to get the correct filter. On the walk back home I suddenly heard someone running up on me fast. For whatever reason, in my mind a threat was coming up on me. I quickly left the sidewalk and stepped off into a yard and started to quickly walk backwards while I was unholstering my gun so as to put as much distance between me and whatever threat that I was about to encounter.
What I saw was a LEO from a neighboring county that was out for his evening jog. This guy lives 4 houses down from me. I know who/what he is due to seeing him come out and returning from work in his uniform, as well as seeing his cruiser parked in his driveway. I never did point my gun at him but rather kept it in the low and ready position. Needless to say his eyes got pretty wide (as did mine) and the only thing he said to me was "sh!t, sorry about that." To which I replied "sh!t, I'm sorry about that, too. You just alarmed me." He continued on with his jogging and I haven't talked to him since.
This incident bothers me for several reasons. For one, he was able to get up on me pretty quick before I realized it. Of course he was no harm and was just out for a run. But if he had been an attacker that was planning on stabbing me in the back or knocking my brains out with a club I would have had very little time to react (I'm sure this is true of most attacks). I wondered afterwards what if he have drawn his gun on me? I doubt he would have ordered me to drop mine since mine was already in my hand. Would I have dropped mine and gotten on the ground as soon as he reached for his, or would he have shot me before I had a chance to "surrender" to him? Worse yet, what if we didn't know of each other and had gotten into a gun fight with each other over a misunderstanding? It would had been real easy for him to see me draw a gun and think that I was there to attack him, only for him to draw a gun which would lead me to believe that he was there to attack me. I took his "I'm sorry about that" comment as he knew that he had startled me and he knew I meant no harm. And of course I knew of him and what he was really doing so that helped.
I wonder if I overreacted? Some folks say that if you think a threat is about to happen to go ahead and place your hand on your firearm but not to draw it until you know for sure that your life is in danger. Others say go ahead and get it in the low and ready position to shave off those few precious seconds that may be needed, as well as because a displayed firearm may make potential attackers think twice about going through with the attack. It was just a frighting experience all the way around, but hopefully a learning experience as well.
What I saw was a LEO from a neighboring county that was out for his evening jog. This guy lives 4 houses down from me. I know who/what he is due to seeing him come out and returning from work in his uniform, as well as seeing his cruiser parked in his driveway. I never did point my gun at him but rather kept it in the low and ready position. Needless to say his eyes got pretty wide (as did mine) and the only thing he said to me was "sh!t, sorry about that." To which I replied "sh!t, I'm sorry about that, too. You just alarmed me." He continued on with his jogging and I haven't talked to him since.
This incident bothers me for several reasons. For one, he was able to get up on me pretty quick before I realized it. Of course he was no harm and was just out for a run. But if he had been an attacker that was planning on stabbing me in the back or knocking my brains out with a club I would have had very little time to react (I'm sure this is true of most attacks). I wondered afterwards what if he have drawn his gun on me? I doubt he would have ordered me to drop mine since mine was already in my hand. Would I have dropped mine and gotten on the ground as soon as he reached for his, or would he have shot me before I had a chance to "surrender" to him? Worse yet, what if we didn't know of each other and had gotten into a gun fight with each other over a misunderstanding? It would had been real easy for him to see me draw a gun and think that I was there to attack him, only for him to draw a gun which would lead me to believe that he was there to attack me. I took his "I'm sorry about that" comment as he knew that he had startled me and he knew I meant no harm. And of course I knew of him and what he was really doing so that helped.
I wonder if I overreacted? Some folks say that if you think a threat is about to happen to go ahead and place your hand on your firearm but not to draw it until you know for sure that your life is in danger. Others say go ahead and get it in the low and ready position to shave off those few precious seconds that may be needed, as well as because a displayed firearm may make potential attackers think twice about going through with the attack. It was just a frighting experience all the way around, but hopefully a learning experience as well.