Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Have you ever "gone fer your gun" in self defense?

Shot over about 3 Griz while working in AK. Always makes it entertaining.

Good on your son, Plinker. Hope he stays safe.

Thanks, BGG, for posting that. I remember it now. Quite an event!

This is a really good thread, best we've had in a while. Great stories, dudes. Keep 'em comin'.

This thread brings back a few memories of hanging with my Great Uncle (by Marriage) when I grew up in southern New Mexico in the 1970's.

His name was.......believe it or not.......Lacy Crabtree. He was a true badass, fearless.........but a terrific person to those that needed help and that he was close to and to everyday people. Very different character.........he strayed to both sides........all in a days work. Had tanglings with the FBI over flying his cessna at night over the border. He either loved you.....or didn't, if you know what I mean.

He was fired from the border patrol in his early days........for........you guessed it.......shooting too many people.

He was REALLY GOOD to me and I spent many summers living with him and my great aunt in Deming, NM.

He used to make and sell turquoise jewelry for a few years. Several times, I went with him to Albuquerque to a show at a convention center. He would hand me a couple satchels full of $100,000 worth of turquoise jewelry, and he would take a couple as well as we walked to the show in public. He would take his roscoe (a .45 automatic of some kind), and casually without words at all hand me one as well to carry in my hand unconcealed as a display to all to not fawk with us. Open carry was apparently legal, or maybe we just never got caught. I was all of 12 or 13 years old. It was fawkin' wild........being around a manly man.....right there in public.

One summer when I was living with him and Aunt Helen, a mex kid kept stealing his doberman which he trained to be mean to folks in order to protect his stuff. The kid would bring him back as "found" and Aunt Helen would give him some $$$ for his efforts. Well the kid caught on for a couple more times, but then the kid and dog never came back.

Unca Lacy heard thru the grapevine that a mex across the tracks had his doberman tied up in his yard. So one morn, Lacy says let's go. He lays his roscoe in the seat next to me and I was wide-eyed as I knew what was gonna happen. We pulled up in the yard, and there's the dog. Lacy gets out, and the mex comes out of his house and says WTF do you want.

Lacy says.........my dog.

Mex says nope.......this is my dog.

Lacy says......I don't fawkin' think so.

Mex goes back inside.......and comes out with a double-barrel 12 gauge. This is my dog, he says.

Lacy grabs the .45 and points it right at the mex......and angrily says "Its my gd dog, and I'm takin it now!!!".

The mex got the message and dropped the 12 gauge, and says "OK senior, you can take it.

Lacy had me walk up there and unchain the doberman who promptly hopped in the truck and we drove away.

Lacy would have shot him over that dog.......and of course, the principle of it all.

I was prolly only 14 or so. I didn't tell my parents about this one. My parents never, ever liked me hanging around Unca Lacy before or after this one, LOLOL.

Not putting him down immediately was merciful enough.

JOG,

Not sure if I get yer drift. Please feel free to expand on yer opinion.

C

Yes, I have, back in 1977. In the parking lot of a business I owned about dark one day, I came upon a fellow just as he pointed a rifle out of the passenger side window of his truck at my father. I pulled my pocket pistol and told him to drop it. He ducked, dropping his rifle just as I shot. I missed him, but put a .38 hole throgh his front and back windshild. Drug him out of his truck and beat the pure hell out of the SOB. He left the scene in an ambulance and spent three days in the hospital. Pointy toed cowboy boots will do a number on ribs and head. My father was able to live another 23 years only because I had my pistol with me and happened on the scene when I did. I am glad that I did not kill the SOB, but I would have been fully justified in doing so. What has bothered me was that I took a chance by yelling for him to drop his gun before me shooting. He could have shot my father before I shot, instead of ducking the split second before I did. Thank God it all worked out. My advice is when shooting is needed, then do it. Do not hesitate. Aviod the situation if at all possible, but if given no reasonable alternative, do not hesitate.

Wow and all you guys think I live in a [bleep] up place! Interesting read.

Not yet. Once I was of the mind that I wanted somebody to try something but I've gotten past that and hope that I never do have to.......but I'm prepared mentally, just in case.

I tried to tell Dorothy that you can't wait until somebody is kicking in your door to decide if you're up to the challenge...you have to decide when you're calm and do like Jeff Cooper taught. When you go to condition red there's almost no turning back unless the goblin flees.

I think I'm ready but am not looking forward to it.

even when they really, really deserve it

I've shown it three times, always with the result that the prospective perp decided to seek easier prey

"You heard me boy...jerk that pistol and go to work...skin that smoke-wagon and see what happens!"

Well done. They say presenting the handgun does the trick in most instances, and yours certainly fits that mold. Most bad guys are looking for easy victims. If it looks like you have the ability and willingness to fight back effectively, they therefore will typically retreat.

Nobody but nobody really wants to get shot. With any caliber. I don't even want to get shot at, even if he misses.

Yes, simply letting the guy know you are prepared to defend yourself usually gives them reason to head the other way.

That reminds me of a bluff I pulled one time.

I was walkin' to work about 5:30 one morning through an average-ish part of town .. not good but not "bad." It was close to a college campus and there were a lot of apartment buildings with open half-basement garages. No traffic on the side street so I was walking up the middle of the street 'cause light wasn't real good and I was uncomfortable with the shadows along the sidewalks. 2 guys came out of one of those garages and cut me off. I didn't say anything, I just "swept" my coat and reached for the back of my pants like I had a small of the back holster. They swapped ends and left. I was damn glad 'cause there was nothin' back there to grab but my shirt tail.

Tom

Fireball2 -

That sounds like the USFS bridge outside Selma.

Tom

I think the first time I was there was in 1980. We, wife and I along with another couple, stayed in cabins at St. Mary's campground but pretty much wandered all around on the west side but never saw a grizz. We have been there several times, came up on some pretty fresh lookin tracks and that was when I started packin heat there, only I was a little underguned being as mine was a Delta Elite 10mm loaded as hot as I dared but still never saw one grizz.

The most fun there was the Friday night hootenanny at the lodge in the north end of the park. Just the employees but they sure put on a heck of a show. I gotta go back there. Maybe this summer.