What is the most threatening self-defense situation you've ever been faced with?

In 1974 I was involved in a gunfight w/three armed robbery suspects in a dark parking lot during evening rush hour. Had to reload my issued Colt Detective Special before we were able to put one suspect down & arrest the other two. One uniformed officer went down w/a .45 round in his chest (no vests), but did recover & returned to full duty a year later.
 
Robbed at gun point at downtown Oakland Ca Safeway.Had the gun put to my head and the hammer was pulled back . Gave the bad guy all the money and he went on his way.That was back in the early 80s.Glad I don't have to do that any more,I'm sure things aren't much better in downtown Oakland
 
I was in the center of a Massachusetts town and decided to take a walk into a large park right in the center of town. Several acres in size. I started to walk across it (all grass and a few sidewalks), and I was all alone in the park, aside from three males about 100 yards away, looked to be late teens / early 20's from where I was. I was walking a straight line, thinking I would walk across the park, and they were walking a path that would intercept me. I didn't feel good about it, and I changed direction. A few seconds later they changed direction, again on a course that would intercept me. I made a beeline out of the park, walking briskly away from their direction, and I got back in town where there were lots people and cars. A car then drove by me very slowly, and one of them was practically hanging his head out the car window staring at me. It was of course them. No doubt in my mind that they were up to no good, and had I not gotten into a part of the town with lots of other traffic and people around me I would have had a problem. I didn't have a MA non-resident permit at the time, I do now. But avoidance and awareness is of course the first line of defense.
 
1970 or 71. Pumping gas at an all night Clark station. {5:30 in the morning} Sounds as thought I'm the only one here that had a straight razor on the jugular experience also a few memories from down town LA where I worked in 73 into 74. The gang presence was very real. Never want anything to do with either ever again.

Common in the day was a judge offering the miscreant if he signed up {Nam} the charges would disappear. Seems that not even Uncle Sam wanted some of the people available to ship.

All these years , and I still remember how mad I was when I felt the razor.
 
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I guess that the 575 pound black bear {wounded from being hit by a PU truck} I was tracking him , and he charged me. I guess he would also count as self defensive. This time I had a 444 Marlin with 265 grains that did the trick. {back up of a 357.....next day I traded in the 357 and bought a 629} There have also been a few dog events in the woods, but those were diffused without any violence so they hardly count . {I do however consider Dogs to be the most dangerous animal in the lower 48 to meet in the woods}
 
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I feel awkward leaving "likes" on some of these posts, even though I know it's obvious intended as a "thank you" for sharing, especially because I know that it isn't always an easy thing, recounting such potentially traumatizing situations.
 
I was a brand-new deputy sheriff in Lawrence County, MO back in '79. We had 40 hours of training to start, and had to get 160 eventually.

Anyway, we got paid just a few cents an hour over minimum wage BUT we could make 25 cents per mile plus $2 for serving civil process in our personal vehicles. You charged mileage by the individual paper served, so you took a stack of 20 or so, served as many as you could on the one trip, and made some grocery money.

Anyhow, I knocked on a door in Aurora, MO; a burly guy came to the door. I asked him if he was _______ - he said he was, so I gave him his papers. He said, "What's this about?" - I looked the documents over and told him those were his divorce papers. He knew nothing about a divorce and started hollering (he was MAD!) at his wife, who started stammering and backing up! I had no radio, no nothing, so I made sure nobody was going to get killed, then left and drove straight to the PD and asked them to check on the address regularly for a while. Never heard about a killing or wife-beating, so I guess it worked out.

I NEVER served any more divorce papers in my brief tenure there!
 
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Twice at the marriage altar...I survived both bruised and bloody by exiting through the divorce court bench, but still unbowed...:rolleyes:...Ben

Joking aside, having been through my share of toxic relationships, including one with a crazy (i.e. certifiably insane) lady, I know all too well just how threatening it can be, and those are some stories too traumatic for me to wish to recount.
 
Held at bay by two Dobermans

Black powder season in ohio back in the early 80’s. My grandpa and I were hunting together. He was the stand person and I did a slow still hunt through the woods toward him. As I was slowly walking along I dropped down into a steep ravine and continued toward him. About 60 yards through the ravine, I heard movement and growling above and to my left (grandpa was further along and on the right side of the ravine). As I eased around a curve in the ravine I came face to face (25 yards and they were higher than me so we were eye to eye) with two Doberman Pinchers feasting on a freshly killed doe. They thought I was going to take their meal and came for me, up with the single shot 45 muzzle loader and I shot the closest one.

With the cloud of smoke, I couldn’t see the other so I turned the rifle around and grabbed the barrel to use it as a club for dog number two. I BACKED up to a huge white oak and stood there shaking, trying to get another load in. I finally managed but never did see the other dog, I assume it ran at the shot.

I eased on toward grandpa’s position and seen a big smile on his face because he thought I killed a deer. After relaying the story to him, we called it a day. From that time forward, we never went deer hunting (black powder or bow) again without a side arm.

It was intense for a short period of time

Kelly
 
Not really life threatening but while I still lived at home with Mom an Dad, about 3 AM, I heard my sister come down from her bedroom, go to our parents bedroom, and tell my Dad that she hears footsteps in her bedroom. Dad and I got up and searched her room and the rest of the house but found nothing.
We went back to bed.
A short while later she comes back down and says she hears footsteps in her bedroom.
We all go back up and check it out. Nothing.
Back to bed.
Shortly she comes back down, insisting someone is in her room.
Dad got up and goes to the sun porch in the rear of the house which gave him a clear view up the walkway between the house and the garage.
He looks up and sees a man’s standing on the garage roof holding on the the gutters.
He said “Call the cops he’s up on the roof”.
I sprung out of bed and grabbed my Mod 60 and ran out of the house in my boxer shorts, bare feet.
I looked around but saw nothing.
Dad came out and quickly spotted the guy running up the street.
I took off in pursuit, wanting to find out who it was, and had my 60 in case he turned on me. Until it dawned on me that I’d left the ammunition sitting on my dresser.
Turned around, ran back grabbed the ammo an took of again in hot pursuit. I walked all around looking for the guy but found nothing.
I went and got my truck and drove around looking but never saw him again.
Years late, a friend of my sister admitted to her it was him. She asked what the heck he was doing?
He told her he didn’t know. He’d been drinking, but I think we all know what he had in mind.
He had been on walking on the garage roof and that’s what she heard.
The couple times we went outside to check the house he flattened on the roof of the garage and from our angle we couldn’t see him.
She told him he dang near got shot.
He told he went to a relations house say someone was chasing him. She
let him in and they watched as I drove up and down looking for him.
Not much of a story but that’s what happened.
 
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Took down a prison escapee north of Mound Valley Ks. had a Mdl 19 out the window at abt 4'. Fortunately he decided to return to Nebraska. Ain,t sure
who was more scared . Me or him. Turned out well no one got hurt.


-don
 
Well the time that I came closest to seeing the other side.

There were no firearms involved. Career Merchant mariner here. I had a guy on a ship, A former professional sparring partner as it later came out at the Coast guard hearing. He tried to beat me to death for no apparent reason. Well he very nearly succeeded in doing so.
If it were not for a fire axe being available to me at the scene, I would likely be dead. This was without a doubt the most frightening situation that I have ever been in. I genuinely considered that if I had not been able to utilize that fireaxe to good effect I was going down, as I could feel consciousness fading under rapid pummeling of my head. And this by a person that knew what they were doing. God saved me clearly in this case.
Aside from that living in New Orleans I pulled twice on people with the intended effect. a S&W 4566 tends to get a lot of respect. The desired outcome ws achieved in both instances. No shots fired, everybody went home.
Now in another instance in New Orleans, my home for twenty one years. I had a kid that looked to be about ten or twelve years old stick me and my date up on St. Charles avenue. The ritziest part of town. I will not go into that, let it suffice to say that He got eight bucks in cash and a twenty dollar watch with no shots fired. You pays your money and you takes your chances.
 
In college working part time at a gas/food shop, guy walked in shoved a gun in my face and said "eat the floor". Not afraid to admit I pissed my pants.
Jim
 
Does Nam. count?

12-11-1965, 2300 hours, flying 500 feet off the Mekong Delta in a P5M Seaplane. Flying past an unidentified Junk there was soon heavy fire coming from the people on the deck. I was manning the aft door M-60 and when the order was given to open fire I just walked the tracers to the wooden deck, soon starting numerous fires. We established a low orbit about the Junk. After emptying numerous ammo cans we departed the area with the Junk fully engulfed and people in the water. The first time I ever fired a weapon at another human being…left me shaking like a leaf in the wind.
 
In college working part time at a gas/food shop, guy walked in shoved a gun in my face and said "eat the floor". Not afraid to admit I pissed my pants.
Jim

Is that all ? Hope you didn’t get hurt at all.
Some perp get what they want and still afflict harm on people.
 
I've had several scary things happen over the years. The first four happened between 1976 and 1981 in Las Vegas:

1. Neighbor was high on cocaine. He had recently been arrested after a fight with his wife got ugly. Another neighbor had loaned him the bail money and asked me to tell "Jim" that he needed it for his rent. I knocked on his door, he started screaming and came out in his underwear with his 1911 and stuck it in my face, and alternated between threatening me and my dog, "I'll kill you too!". My dog had a fear of guns and they were one of the few things he was scared of, so he wanted to bail out and leave. Strangely, I wasn't scared at all, I was angry. The neighbor who had loaned him the bail money appeared behind him and was signaling me to drop so he could take him out. I didn't do it because I had no idea what that signal meant. After a couple of minutes of him yelling at me, he went inside. Someone had called the police, but they said it wasn't loaded, so they gave him a pass.

Second one I was working as a security guard at one of the downtown casinos. We also did the security for the place across the street. I was checking the lot and saw a Chevy pickup with a shell on the back of it and the shell was open. I walked up and saw two pairs of blue eyes light up. I didn't have to see the dogs they belonged to to know they were big. Two very large German Shepherds came out and the one appeared to be seriously thinking about attacking. I pulled my Dan Wesson 15-2, and yelled, "STOP, GET BACK IN THE TRUCK!", and the "boss dog" took a step towards me, so I cocked the gun and said, "NO!", and they both jumped back in and I closed the door up. I found the owner and told him he had to bring the dogs into his room for the night.

The third one was really crazy. I was going home after work and was carrying the same gun as above. I was at a light and there were two guys in a red Chevy Nova in front of me. When the light turned green, they just sat there, so I honked the horn for like maybe one second. They took off, but I could see them thrashing around inside. At the next light, they both came out of the car with aluminum baseball bats, screaming they were going to kill me. I pulled my DW, put the muzzle out the window and said, "Get back in your car!", the driver said, "He's got a cannon!", and they jumped into the Nova and took off. I was almost home and got there, fed my dogs, and was thinking about calling 911 on them, and it turned out they had already called the police and told a very different story from what had really happened. The police asked me to put my gun away and I did, and then went out and talked to them. The two whackjobs said I pulled my gun "for no reason at all", and that I said I was going to kill them. I told them what really happened, but at first they said, "It's your word against theirs!", so I asked them, "So if it happened the way they say it did, why can I tell you what colors the baseball bats were?". One was blue and silver, the other bronze and silver. The cops let them fill out a report on it, and while they were doing that, looked in the car and saw the bats in the back seat just like I said. After they signed the reports, the cops told them, "Turn around and put your hands behind your back!", They got all upset, and even when the cops told them why they were being arrested, they still didn't get what had happened. They ended up getting probation and a $500 fine each.

I was working at a gas station on the West side of Vegas with another guy. We had had no real problems until that night in the six months I had worked there. I saw the other guy, "Billy" fighting with someone in front of the "booth". I went out to see what was going on, and there were three guys shoving him. I didn't see the 4th one until he came from behind the pumps, with a black revolver, probably an RG .22. One of the other 3 was shoving a .38 nickel S&W looking gun into Billy's face and one of the unarmed guys, a huge guy, slammed Billy into the side of the booth, and said,"Hey! We aren't messing around!". I told Billy to just let them have the money. And that's when it got weird. One guy we knew, he had been coming in daily for cigarettes and gas, he even tipped us the change! What they and Billy didn't know was I had, because of problems with the drop safe, had the whole shift's take in my pockets, along with my just cashed paycheck. All they got was $48 out of the till, and 4 cartons of Kool cigarettes. That's it. I had over $700 from the shift, along with about $300 of my pay. They never took anything from me, and left.
We both picked the guy we knew out of the mug books almost instantly. He got arrested, skipped bail, skipped AGAIN, and went back to his home town, Chicago, where he shot a liquor store owner who knew him by name. The store owner weighed about 400 pounds and the weak and old .38 he shot him with went in about an inch, and he fainted from the shock. He took a couple of bottles of booze and about $100 in cash. When the owner woke up, he called the cops and said, "XXXXXXX XXXXXXX shot me and held me up!". He got picked up, and was sent back to Nevada. He was openly threatening both Billy and I when we were on the witness stand, "You're dead man!". His lawyer was unable to get him to stop. He was found guilty in about 45 minutes (They ate lunch) and I went to the sentencing, and I was glad I did. The judge was known as "Maximum Bob" gave him a total of 30 years. The prosecutor asked for 12. He went ballistic and tried to get to the judge, who jumped out of his chair, pulled up his robe as the baliffs wrestled him into shackles, and pulled a 1911 out and said, "Don't make me kill you son". He could be heard yelling for a long time after he was dragged away. Off to Chicago he went and got another 50 years added on for the robbery and attempted murder, felon with a gun, etc. He died in prison about 25 years later, in Illinois at about 63.

Last one was in Ohio. A neighbor's kid was a big drug user. He would get high and let their dog, a Rottweiler, run loose, and he attacked my 14 year old dog, whose response was to bite him on the face at full power. He couldn't fight anymore, but his crazy bite power still remained. The Rottie looked stunned after he got bit, shook his head like, "Wow!", and about then the kid and his buddy "Jason" came running out the door. I yelled, "Come and get your dog!", and they came over and took him away, dripping blood pretty badly. When the kid's dad came home, I went over there and talked to him about what had happened. He said that it was his kid's fault, so he would pay to get the stitches his dog needed. My dog was just bruised up, his super thick hair kept him from having any real bite injury. I thought it was all settled, but a couple days later, he comes running up and punches me in the shoulder. I was about 50 pounds heavier than he was and we got into it. He was losing, and pulled a knife on me, and I pulled what I was carrying, an S&W 3913. He took off, and later on, his dad called me and I told him his kid came close to being shot. Years later, the kid did get straightened out and his a grandfather now. He came very close to not being a dad at all.
 
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