Yep, and Renegade just made a great point as well...KBCraig wrote:What are you disagreeing with? No one said he didn't know they were AC repairmen; he knew they were. He also KNEW they were trespassing, refusing to leave, and belligerent about it.txinvestigator wrote:And I disagree. He KNEW they were AC repairmen, according to his post.KBCraig wrote:Trespassers (outnumbering you 2-1) refusing to leave and displaying a hostile attitude is a potentially threatening situation. Retrieving a means of self defense is not threatening, it's prudent.txinvestigator wrote:Just a thought. You had words with the guys and told them to leave. They said make me, so you went and got a gun.
That could easily be taken as threatening.
Making a display of retrieving the gun could be threatening, but the trespassers obviously didn't feel threatened, since they didn't leave until the police told them to (an hour later).
You and I don't disagree on that point. The difference for me (and you, I suspect) is that we wouldn't have to retrieve a gun from the car -- we'd already be carrying one. That doesn't make us trigger-happy. It also doesn't make TexasJoe trigger-happy, it just makes him guilty of being slower to arm himself.There is no shortage of people looking for a reason to get involved in a situation or grab that gun though.
But what I'm seeing here is extremely "hearsay" as well...But TexasJoe was not the one who said "make me"...the A/C guys in this case appeared to have escalated the situation first...
"If" they )A/C guys) had just left, let things cool down, I am sure a reasonable discussion/resolution "may have been attained at that time...
There is also this little thing that keeps pinging me about this is that TexasJoe was facing a disparity...(in the number of people dissagreeing with him...)
And regardless, TexasJoe was in the absolute right to "ask" them to leave, pretty much regardless of tone or words used...
At least this is the way I see it...
Imagine the "non incident" this would have been, if the A/C guys had looked first, and saw that they'd have to access their "project" from someone elses property...To me that looks to be no big deal, if they had just gone to TexasJoe and informed him...
I would almost bet a dollar that he'd have not had one problem with it if that had occured...
So hindsight being 20/20...There were probably a lot of things that could have been handled better on both sides of the equation...
But thats just my opinion...
