Wow.@LookAtYou It's okay to share the details of "that fateful night".
The woman next door was stupid and would let her dog run around loose (in the middle of a city of over 100,000) and chase bicyclists. One night a really wasted bicyclist took great offense to this, chased her dog to the front door, and tried to force his way in.
I woke up to him screaming and cursing outside. I stepped out with my 357 and saw her trying to hold the door shut and him gradually forcing it open. He was a big muscular young guy with no shirt.
I yelled at him, but he didn't respond. I didn't want to get beaten to death by him or murder him, so I shot the mud at the base of a tree. That got his attention (and everyone else on the block). I loudly and deafly shouted that the next one was for him. He fled the scene.
I guess I have a little story of my own. To make it pretty short, I was on my way walking back to my house, when I heard what sounded like a bomb going off, followed by glass shattering. Across the street, a homeless old guy collapsed, and I saw the shooter run away down the block. IDK exactly what he had, but it was a semi-auto. The homeless guy got up minutes later and walked away from the scene. I guess he played dead or faked like he got hit. This happened at a bus stop, the glass came from one of those glass panels at a semi-enclosed bus stop.
This experience made me respect (idk if that's the best word to use in this case) guns even more as far as them being a weapon. I mean ofc I already knew that, but once you are around them and handle guns for so long, you can definitely get desensitized to what it is/can do in a way. Even just the noise they make can be a weapon in itself, lol. It'll perk you up real quick, ESPECIALLY if you're not expecting it. I'd assume as the shooter, at least you have the fact that you know you're about to hear a gunshot to your advantage. When it comes by surprise, it's different.