its been a LONG time....but remember like it JUST happened
I was closing a service station one night after high school, a bit nervous as there had been several rural stations in the next county robbed and the attendants shot and killed. I was in a small town less than a block from the police station (I could see it out the back window of the shop) and felt a BIT safer for that.
I had cleared the island till (remember THOSE?) and was counting it out into the safe tray when a man in a trenchcoat walked in and asked if he could use the restroom. I looked up into the barrels of a sawed-off 12 ga with MAYBE 6 inches of barrel left.
He handed me a cloth sack and told me to empty the tills and the safe tray, which I did. I also stepped on the pressure switch under the dk green tile in a black and white checkerboard pattern floor. That was the switch for the alarm in the local PD. I was SWEATING as he asked me if there was more money in the safe...I figured that I had best get it for him and that I might live longer if he was waiting for more money from the safe.
As I went to walk out from around the counter I saw behind the perp, the form of a friend's father at a dead run for the station. His Dad was a retired Marine (Gunnery Sgt) and the commander of the night shift police in my town. Sgt never broke stride as he ran THROUGH the glass of the door and tackled the perp with a wrap-up tackle that left the perps gun hand with several broken fingers as the gun was stripped and his wrist broken. I just stood there and SHOOK for a while.
The next day after school, Sgt and my friend were waiting for me, Sgt asked if I owned a handgun
(not at that time, my father was VERY anti HANDGUN,:banghead: but owned a rifle and a shotgun - he owns a S&W 681 now after a home invasion and 2 burglaries), when I answered in the negative he invited me out to their place for supper. There I was introduced to the .45 auto and the Colt 1911. I went home with one that night, Dad and I had QUITE a fight over that. but after what had happened the night before, he stopped before I walked out the door for good.
That gun was stolen in college, but it started me shooting handguns,( I already hunted) the incident started me being AWARE of what is around me...even in "safe" environments. Except at work, I am never out of reach of a handgun and there are long guns in various places in my house. I have lost a few when I was burgled a few years ago..but all were recovered.
I have tried to teach my boys to be aware, they both shoot, one hunts and they are more savy than many of their peers as they are reaching adulthood and growing through highschool (ages 19 and 15)
Aaron