You Have No Idea Who You're Dealing With

[Trunk Monkey]

I was out running the street one night when I was 13 years old and one of the guys that I was with said something smart-ass to somebody who was driving by us in a car.
They turned around and chased us down, they caught my friend.

He told us when they caught up with him the driver got out of the car with a tire iron and without saying a word smacked him in the head. They broke his nose, and took out all of his upper front teeth. I promise you wherever my friend is at today he's still carrying the marks of that beating.

I learned a lesson that night. That was 40 years ago and I STILL don't trifle with people I don't know.

This morning on my way home somebody pulled out in front of me and I stopped. The lady behind me almost drove up my rear end and she decided she was going to throw a fit.

When she did my mind went back 40 years. I know what kind of people live in this town. There's a reason I don't walk out my front door without a gun. There's also a reason that even though I'm always armed (really BECAUSE I'm always armed) I STILL DO NOT trifle with people I don't know.

If that woman keeps going off on random strangers it's only a matter of time. Sooner or later she's going to win the Psycho Lottery and the person she goes off on is going to get out of the car with a tire iron (or a gun). If she's lucky they'll only screw up her car.

Then SHE'LL be on Facebeast talking about how you shouldn't trifle with people you don't know.

 

[Kleanbore]

good post.

 

[Hartkopf]

I know a person that is one of those guys. He made a guy break down and cry in front of his girlfriend. It’s a long messy story but his rage was a thing to avoid and the crying boyfriend learned a lesson that night.

 

[Obturation]

You can never judge a person in any capacity by appearance . the one toothed guy drooling and picking his nose may be a world class chess master and the 5'1" 95# guy may be the last guy ANYONE may want to pick a fight with. People are crazy, overestimate everyone .

I make habit of being polite and courteous , even to rude people. I've had people get more angry or frustrated by my lack of reaction . have confidence but carry a gun for if you can't talk your way out of a bad spot.

 

[grampster]

I suppose if you had a way of counting things, you'd discover that a smart mouth was the match that lit the fuse.

 

[DukeConnor]

I worked with a skinny quiet kid. He was a apprentice. I noticed he seemed to have bruises and cuts on his face. looked terrible on mondays.

this kid didn't weigh 140 lbs.

After a few months I pulled him aside and inquired about his well being.

This quiet little kid was a major high school werestler that had destroyed a knee.

he lost his free college ride but enjoyed doing MMA type fighting on the weekends and had over a hundred wins.

I always considered myself as a man who could handle buisnes.

I went to his next fight. This kid was ferocious. He could destroy just about anyone i knew.

You have no idea what the guy standing next to you is capable of.

 

[JohnKSa]

Never assume that you're the craziest person in the situation.
Never assume that the other person will react like you would.
When you go looking for trouble, sometimes you hit the jackpot.
When you hand someone a blank check for trouble, you never know if there will be enough in your account to cover it.

Presumably most of us are reading and posting in this particular section of THR because we're concerned about personal safety. It makes ZERO sense to do things that compromise personal safety while at the same time working hard to preserve it.

 

[waterhouse]

About 20 years ago I was at a downtown bar on an upstairs balcony for a private Halloween party. Not the sort of thing I normally attend but my future wife wanted to go.

Out on the street below us, amongst hundreds of adults in costumes, were 3 males in white underwear walking down the street with their arms on each other’s shoulders. Some group of frat guys made a crack about their sexuality, and promptly had the crap kicked out of them. About a half a block later, the same thing happened. On the way back to the car about an hour later I saw the men in underwear and asked about their night.

Turns out they were MMA guys in training and one of their brothers had recently been a victim of a hate crime beating in the area for being gay. They decided to go vigilante for the night in a sign of support.

I already knew it at the time but it is always a helpful reminder to keep my mouth shut and mind my own business.

 

[IlikeSA]

There's a good YouTube video out there about overconfident people and fighting. It basically says that when you look at that young guy, he may be an overweight chain smoker with no martial arts experience, or he may be a Muay Thai champion. Most people have never been in a physical altercation with a trained martial artist, and have no idea what they are doing. It's just amazing the overconfidence that people have in their own ability.

Bringing it over to firearms, the person who is upset or angry may be a person with Jerry Miculek or Bob Munden like speed/accuracy, or be a terrible shot who gets lucky that one time. He only needs to be lucky once.

 

[1942bull]

Self defense should not be a part time pursuit. I carry 24/7. Right now I am on my 4th cup of morning tea, sitting at the breakfast table. My LCP II is IWB. It went there as I dressed. Prior to that my PPS M2 was on the nightstand next to my bed. When I drive my car the LCP II is in a pocket holster wedged between the driver seat and center console. It goes back to IWB whenI exit the car. When I say 24/7 I really mean it.

 

[Choctaw]

When I was in high school we were at a skating rink in a nearby town. We were about to leave but there was a crowd of about thirty people yelling at two cowboys (and yes, they were cowboys) in the parking lot. As the cowboys started to drive away someone hit their truck with a rock. The two cowboys exited the truck and waded into the crowd with fists flying. I don't know how many people they punched but the crowd broke and ran. The cowboys calmly walked back to their truck and left. It was amazing. I'm pretty sure the cowards in the crowd remember the beating they took and will for the remainder of their lives. You just never know who you are dealing with and what they are capable of.

 

[lemaymiami]

Dangerous business being rude to strangers... "nuff said..."

In my own experience how anyone will react to sudden danger just can't be predicted - the great big strong athletic type - was the first to break and run when we were gassed in training - all those years ago... He actually ran over a drill sergeant or two before running full tilt into a barbed wire fence...

The little skinny "librarian type" was the guy running out in front of everyone to toss back the grenades incoming...

I worked with a soft spoken guy built skinny and wearing glasses - that could have a violent suspect on the ground and controlled before any of us present could even take a step - and I saw it happen on more than one occasion... He just happened to be a former Marine with extensive real life combat in Vietnam - but never even spoke of it... He passed away this year but I only heard of it afterwards. I'd have faced down the devil with him at my side. He was that good in a scrap...

One person gets a minor wound to an arm - and dies right there... the next one takes two or three rounds center of mass then proceeds to kill the attacker with bare hands... before bleeding out.

I personally dealt with a middle aged guy who worked in a sleazy adult bookshop - no physical fitness specimen, who was confronted by two armed robbers one day inside the store. He didn't even remember how he'd jumped over a four foot tall counter (confirmed by 2nd victim/witness who was present...) and snatched the gun from one of the robbers and proceeded to beat him about the head with his own revolver... before chasing them both away - without firing a single shot... When I got there (first on the scene...) there were bloodspots on the walls - both victims had head wounds - not a single shot was fired in the incident... One of the robbers kept his gun but the victim still had the other one's revolver in his hands when I showed up... By the way, we did confirm the story since some of the blood evidence on the walls had hair samples from a different race than the two victims... Both victims had severe pistol whipping type injuries to their heads - and so did their assailants...

No, we never found the robbers - but I imagine they took up a different way of "getting paid"...

 

[CDW4ME]

Goals of not getting arrested or sued and sleeping in ones own bed that night.

 

[WestKentucky]

I helped out with the church youth for a while, and there was one young man that at about 15 was the scrappiest fighter I have ever seen. He has moved around on the MMA scene and has won most of his fights by a knockout early into the match. He’s the guy that everybody underestimates. Glasses, kinda nerdy looking, insanely smart, and shy. I took him shooting one time just to give him that opportunity and the kid instantly took to it. He is about 21 now and I havent seen him in a couple years, but it’s people like him that make me question everything I see. With him I saw a vulnerable kid, but he was anything but. With a pistol in his hand he was even that much more dangerous to his attackers. I truly hope that he ended up in the military because he would be a great asset for a SF unit somewhere.

 

[RetiredUSNChief]

On the flip side...

If you're the "big, bad, mofo", it would also serve you well to remember that there's ALWAYS somebody else out there who's bigger and badder than you.

Or perhaps just a psycho who doesn't care one whit about taking a life.

Let it go.

 

[jlpskydive]

One of my favorite sayings is "Never ever misunderstand when I say, I don't want to, for I wont."

 

[murf]

karma

murf

 

[GEM]

I worked on this case. Four young studs get into a fender bender with a scrawny older guy. They get out and the driver stud starts to puff up and berate the old guy. The old guy pulls out a paring knife from his pocket (the kind you cut an apple with), small blade. He sticks it into the stud's chest. He hits a magic spot (major blood vessel) and the stud drops dead right there.

 

[Hartkopf]

I worked on this case. Four young studs get into a fender bender with a scrawny older guy. They get out and the driver stud starts to puff up and berate the old guy. The old guy pulls out a paring knife from his pocket (the kind you cut an apple with), small blade. He sticks it into the stud's chest. He hits a magic spot (major blood vessel) and the stud drops dead right there.

I went to school with a big mouth little guy that never got his butt kicked in school because he was kind of funny. He pushed the limit regularly. Just out of high school he talked trash one night and was stabbed in the major artery below the heart and bleed out and died almost instantly.

 

[FL-NC]

Confrontations are like a box of chocolates.

 

[Trunk Monkey]

My point in starting this thread wasn't to tell War Stories. There's a mindset that goes with my story and I'm not sure how to explain it.

In the story that I told I was 13 and if I remember right my friend who got the beating what's 16. I understand that age you think you're invincible and nothing would ever happen to you but I remember reading a discussion on a different forum in which a member who was in his sixties started talking smack to some random stranger's wife because she and her husband were arguing in a grocery store.

He got really upset when I suggested that wasn't the smartest thing he could have done and he told me that by having their argument in public the couple invited public commentary. He also mentioned that if the husband wanted to take issue with his comments he was armed.

The following was my response

"You didn't know who the people were. You didn't know the context of the comment. The woman said something smart assed to the man and you jumped right in.

Do you really not see how that could have gone South?

When I said I didn't understand the topic I meant it. That type of thinking is totally foreign to me. I guess because I grew up in a culture where such behavior wasn't accepted and if you stepped over the line the on the spot correction was immediate.

There really are people in the World that would have turned around and dropped you with no warning for that. Regardless of your age. I promise you I've seen it happen. I've had it happen to me and that's why I don't do stuff like that any more.

The attitude was reinforced from day one of my first basic handgun safety course. I was taught that such behavior is incompatible with carrying a handgun for self defense because it's inviting trouble that could have been avoided.

I was taught that when I'm carrying a gun (always) I give up the right to be jerk to people because I can't afford to have a minor confrontation escalate to a gun fight ( read your newspaper stuff like that happens everyday).

So bottom line what you did is something I would never do because I've experienced some very real negative reinforcement the few times I did. "

I said it in another discussion but the world has changed and I think a lot of people don't realize that. The woman that threw a fit at me would never DREAM of getting out of her car and starting a fight with someone so (IMO) it would never occur to her that somebody else would. I hope I'm wrong but I suspect one day she's going to find out the hard way.

I'm lucky because I learned that lesson without really having to pay to great a price for it. I really have seen somebody open his mouth at the wrong time and how the person he was being smart ass to turn around and drop him. It's happened to me a time or two and I've learned from it.

Maybe I take it too far the other way but I'm very careful what I say to people I don't know. I almost never joke with people because as I said above I'm pretty much always armed and I can't afford to have some trifling argument escalate.

 

[DoubleMag]

Most people have never been in a physical altercation with...

ANYONE! Ain't it great, not having to scrap. But, always have a workable / working plan...

Self defense should not be a part time pursuit. I

Best defense has been stated here already over & over. SHUT UP ye olde pie hole. Next best thing? Be able to run/fight another day. Most ppl even if able bodied, but not moderately exercised, cannot run 20+ yards without needing wind.

BEST PLAN...Keep ye pie hole shut; get a regular, modest exercise regimen going. Hey...my $.02

 

[lemaymiami]

In any confrontation... before things get out of hand... your best friend is simply distance from any possible opponent. Keep your distance - even backing up to maintain that distance if possible. Allowing anyone to get near you that might have aggression as their next tactic is a very bad idea - and simply lousy tactics. Getting in close proximity to someone that really really doesn't like you can contribute to all that follows when the words stop...

 

[edwardware]

I was taught that when I'm carrying a gun (always) I give up the right to be jerk to people because I can't afford to have a minor confrontation escalate to a gun fight

This, right here.

When I put on a gun, every confrontation potentially becomes a gunfight. The only reasonable response is to avoid any confrontation that isn't worth taking a life to win.

In my opinion, an unwillingness or inability to adopt this non-confrontational attitude disqualifies you from carrying a gun.

“An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.” - Heinlein

 

[armedwalleye]

My first carry class instructor (yes, I know,...the class and proficiency test is mandatory in MN) said something that always stuck with me.... "You can afford to carry a gun. You can afford to carry a temper. You can't afford to carry both together."