I'm not going to go into my entire history but there are 2 major incidents that made me decide to own a firearm for self defence.
First off, I've been a manager for about 10 years. I ran restaurants for 5 and print shops for the same. I've hired hundreds and done a fair amount of firing as well. Some of the jobs I've worked at had convicted killers, ex-cons and future cons on the payroll but most of my experiences were good despite the rough nature of some of these guys. I had grown up in a pretty rough place and was surrounded by people like that and I never really felt concerned for my safety until 2007.
In 07 I was working in downtown Dallas for a reprographic printing company, after a production employee gave notice I needed to find a replacement so we began interviewing applicants. One of the guys was a really rough looking vato who had done time, but he was honest and up front about it and also had great experience in the industry. Turns out he had worked for a competitor and even had a good reference!
Well 'we' hired him (I still defer to the owner on that one) and for several weeks things are fine. The guy shows up on time and is decent worker which is as good as we can ask for @ $8/hr. Then things started getting scary/weird, we'd catch him talking to himself as if he was in an argument, he told us about some girlfriend who turned out he was stalking and then there was the cutting...dude liked to cave words into his arm. So little by little this guy started going nuts on us but there wasn't a real reason to fire him and to be honest we were all a little scared to. Then one day it got bad... Long story short he had some crush on one of our sales girls, bought her flowers and she blew him off. That was what set him off. He went outside and slashed her tires and carved words into every panel on her car, then he almost severs his finger off and then calmly tries to go back to work, bleeding profusely all over the office. He actled like nothing happened.
Now I can't tell you everything that happend because I wasn't there but I was off site and got a call from my employes who told me not to come back without the cops.
Super long story, even shorter!
After a showdown in the office I manage to get the guy to let everyone go but then fled right before the cops come. Cops search bldg, take statements etc. They never found the guy that night.
Death threat phone calls start coming in not too much later to the shop and the girl. She's a mess at this point as is her boyfriend. We're not that mutch better.
Things cool down for a couple of days. The cops send detectives for affadavits and we have DPD offduty at the shop the rest of the week.
That weekend, one of our less than reputable delivery drivers apparently/alledgedly calls in some friends from south Dallas to take care of the guy (pure genius). Apparently they pull some drive by on the halfway house the ex-con stays at and then guess what. Vato loco calls ME asking if I shot his house up! Turns out he grabbed the company address book and has all of our addresses and phone #s!
I do my best to calm him and convince him I'm his friend, to turn himseLf in, etc. Then as soon as I got off the phone I drove to a pawn shop and bought a 12 ga. .
We later find out the guy is connected with the Texas Syndicate thru a cousin so things got even more interesting because he claimed we all had death sentences. I wish I could tell the whole story but this played out over months so the cliff notes are
JC Hires ex-con with some screws loose.
Ex-con goes crazy
JC buys guns
Like I said there are 2 major things that let me to the path for a CHL, I'll tell the other when I have more time.
........ 
