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And a little note to your new story, don't take your eyes off of a guy 3 times after he has already pulled a gun on you.

You are correct! Like I said, I was young and dumb. When you're young, you feel invincible and think you're never going to die.

Abraham wrote:This is the sort of story that reminds me to stay the heck out of inconvenience stores as they get robbed more often than any other business including banks.

My only other 'close call' was back in the 80's when I was a district manager of a small burger chain. (anyone in the Dallas area remember a gun-toting lunatic named Harvey Goff?)

This was the night before Thanksgiving, and I was called by the store manager of the store at Lovers and Greenville ave . . she was getting the flu and wanted to bug out early. I drove to the store, told her to go home, and then told the cook to start shutting it down.

I pulled the cash register cash and put it in my pocket - Company policy: the cash was in pocket until we wrote out the deposit slip and then drove to the banks night deposit and made the drop.

The cook was in the back, I was behind the counter, and i see a guy walk across the parking lot while looking in at me. He walks on by and I thought nothing more of it. No customers in the store.

For those who knew or have heard of Harvey Goff, you'll know that I'm not lying when I say that Harvey was a 'gun guy'. (He kept a Sherman tank parked in his back yard in Highland Park)
Anyway, and that particular store, there was a 1911 .45 acp in the drawer behind the counter. Same drawer where I kept those slim leather bank bags with register change (rolled quarters, dimes, nickels, and some extra packets of $1 bills. Harvey always kept his guns locked and loaded.

A few minutes later, I look up and happen to see the same guy walk across the parking lot again, and I very specifically thought, 'I bet he comes in here and asks for change for a dollar and when I open the register he'll rob me. . .'

Well, a moment later, he walks in and when he is about 4 feet from the counter, he pulls out a dollar and asks for change, exactly as had thought he would! (how's that for some spidey-sense?) . I look down at the register and open it (knowing there is nothing but a couple $1's in it and some loose change . . .) and when I look back up at him, he has a little Saturday night special .38 about 6 inches from my face and his hand is shaking like a leaf. 'Gimme all the money!' he says.

Well, for some reason, I was just unbelievably, almost unnaturally calm. And, some will say, (at this next part) VERY stupid.

I thought to myself, 'he will shoot me out of sheer nervousness if I don't get him to get that gun out of my face. So, I handed him the 40 or so $1 bills from the register and tell him, 'that's all there is.' and he looks at me, and I reach up and slowly put my finger on the side of his gun hand and gently push it away so that he doesn't shoot me in the face.
I tell him, 'put that away, and go on out of here, that's all we have, i've already made the deposit'

He puts the gun pack into his windbreaker pocket and turns to leave, and takes 2 steps, then turns around and pulls the gun back out and sticks it in my face again. "I know you got more in that drawer back there! Gimme that!' Again, I reach up and slowly, and TENDERLY, gently push the gun so that it's not pointed at my face. His hand was shaking like a leaf, and I realized that he was more nervous than I was ! I tell him, 'Okay, I'll give it to you, just put that away so no one gets hurt, and he puts it back in his windbreaker pocket.

So, now I'm thinking, 'Harvey's gun is in that drawer, along with a bank bag of about $30 in rolled coins. Should I give him the money, or show him that my gun is bigger than his?'
I make my decision, that I will show him that I have a bigger gun, my thinking being that as nervous as he is, he will turn tail and run, and if not, then it won't be the 1st time gunshots have rang out in one of Harvey's places. (I saw him shoot a mouse inside the store he stayed at)

I turned around, took a deep breath, and opened the drawer and . . .the gun was gone! I found out later that Harvey had taken it home the night before.

So, I grabbed the leather bank bag and pulled it out and walked out from behind the counter and walked up to the guy and handed it to him. As I put it in his hand he took his hand off the gun in his pocket, and I took him by the arm, at the elbow and started walking him to the door. As we walked, I said, that's all we got, you can leave now, and I walked him right up to the side door and didn't open it, thinking that he would put his fingers on it and the cops could get fingerprints from that.

He opened the door and was about to walk out, and I turned and started heading back to the back and then I felt something in my back (the business end of the little .38 he was carrying. He said 'I want you to go in the back' and I asked 'what for?'
His answer, 'I want you to lay down on the floor, face down. . . '

At this point I wasn't quite as calm as I had been throughout the whole ordeal. I knew what 'lay down face down on the floor' meant. . .

At this point my employee came walking out of the walk-in cooler and he looks at me, sees some guy behind me, and was confused, until I moved to one side and then nodded down towards the gun the bad guy was pointing. The employee starts looking very pale.

I turned to the bad guy and as firmly as I could, said 'I'm not going to lay down, come on, I'll take you to the door before the cops arrive.' and I take him by the arm and led him to the same door again, and this time he opened it and started running off across the parking lot.

I sighed a long sigh of relief and called the police. They were there, I kid you not, within 20 seconds! Yes, they did get fingerprints off the doorknob (I was SO proud of that! LOL) then I called Harvey and told him. His response? Wish I'd a been there! I'd a put a few holes in him!

Of course, the police told me that I was very lucky, and I agree.

The moral to the story, for me anyway, is; firstly, we never know how we'll react in a stressful situation, and as we get older I think we become a lot more conservative in how we act. (I highly doubt I'd be so calm if this type of thing happened nowadays)

Secondly, the act of having access to a gun in a situation could be good OR bad. In this instance, I honestly think it would have ended BADLY had I been able to pull that gun out of that drawer, and I'm glad I didn't have to. At that time in my life, I had NO firearms training. I knew enough to point and shoot, but I think the small amount of knowledge I had at that point would have gotten me killed. Especially since that kid was so nervous, because he might NOT have cut and run as I thought he would.

Sorry for the long post, but that incident years ago was one that made me realize that gun training (proper gun training and knowledge) is just as important as having a gun, and the lack of such knowledge when around a gun could, in fact, be deadly, even when using it for 'self-defense'.

The entire incident certainly has me thinking about what happens in public situations. What to do. When and If I should do it.
I wasn't being directly threatened, but had those 3 hurt the Mom and Pop after I left the store I would feel badly about not helping.

Also, if I had attempted to help, would I have been in more danger? (3 against 1)

A simple incident like this raises a lot of questions for a CHL'er

and if each of those 3 bad guys had been using your idea? 3 guys with glocks with 17 rounds each? . . . I don't think I would have had a chance. . . LOL

I'm not sure what I would have done. I was thinking more along the lines of stopping it before it got started, and then when I went outside to the car I was thinking I'd dial 911 if anything started and used it in self defense.

I knew I couldn't have done anything inside there, at a 3-1 disadvantage.

Obviously I didn't fully think out a scenario where it would have gone that badly.

Your question makes me re-consider the idea of the wisdom of staying in there at all. It also makes me realize that I should switch out my EDC from the LCP to the S&W M&P Shield 9mm that I just purchased, which I will do as soon as I get the holster i've ordered.

I didn't think of that, and yes, I did have my back to them as I exited the store.
One thing I forgot to add, was that while I was sitting out front, I had a pretty decent view of what was happening inside and my phone was ready to dial 911 had I thought that anything out of the ordinary was going down in there.

I was alone. Had I had any friends or family with me, I would have driven away instead of staying there.

Good advice though, about not turning your back to the bad guys. I will keep that in mind and hope that I never have to put it into practice!

last saturday evening, I happened to be in a convenience store in Carrollton. A mom and pop store, not a 7-11 or similar chain store. I frequent this store daily.

I was carrying. I've had my CHL since December. I carry a Ruger LCP.

Anyway, it's about 8:30 pm. the place is empty except for me, and the Mom and Pop. A very nice older Korean couple. A young black man comes in. He seems to be maybe 16 or 17, and he's wearing a long bulky coat, and when he walks in, the woman behind the counter immediately asks him what he wants, and he tells her that he is 'just looking'. My radar immediately started going off. After all, who goes into a convenience store to 'look'? Convenience stores are stores you go in to buy something and then get gone, not for window shopping etc.

Then I see 2 more young black men walk in, and they make eye contact with the 1st kid and then those 2 walk together to the back corner of the store and face the corner and start whispering. I see kid #1 look at them, and then he switches aisles and starts (in my opinion) 'pretending' to look at stuff on the shelves.

At this point, the hair on the back of my neck was standing up and I was certain that they were about to rob the place.

I put my hand on my fanny pack and slid the top open and rested my hand on the butt of the gun. Then, I realized that I needed to get out of there. I am not law enforcement and had no business trying to put down a robbery. The kid #1 saw me put my hand to my side and I gave him a strong look in the eyes, trying my best to look as if I knew what he was up to. Don't know if it made any difference but before he looked away, he definitely saw my hand at my side and my shirt was pulled up over the fanny pack. there's no doubt he saw it. Whether he put 2 and 2 together is anybody's guess.

Meanwhile, the Mom and Pop were on high alert. 'Mom' had come around from behind the counter and was standing at the end of the aisle glaring at kid #1, and periodically asking him what he wanted. I have seen them do this before. Their situational awareness always seems to be 'on' for people who come into the store and have seen both of them run people out of the store for loitering too long.

'Pop' was still behind the counter with the phone in one hand and the other below the counter out of sight.

I walked out, got into my car which was parked right at the front door and I pulled the LCP out and held it in my lap.

A moment or two later I see all 3 of them leave the store and walked away (together) down the street.

I reholstered, and walked back inside, and checked out Mom and Pop and everything was cool, and they were both back behind the counter. I breathed a sigh of relief and immediately began thinking about what would have happened if these kids had gone through with their planned robbery.

I am utterly convinced that they were in fact, going to rob the place, and don't know what it was that made them call it off. I'm thinking Mom and Pop blustered them out the door. She must have rattled their cages following that one kid from aisle to aisle.

I don't know if I did the right thing, or the wrong thing, or a combo platter of both, but I'm glad it didn't go sideways any more than it already was . . .