Anécdota del Uso Persuasivo de un Arma de Fuego
Miguel González
Miguel González
I thought long and hard about sharing this with y’all, since some aspects don’t reflect well upon me (As you’ll see. For starters I was carrying illegally). But what the heck, here goes: About 20 yrs. ago, where I used to live was spectacularly beautiful, but not without it’s problems, including high levels of violent crime, usually involving guns (I don’t want to name it in order not to damage it’s reputation. It was a great place to live, but it had it’s problems). Ironically, it had very strict gun ownership laws. You needed a license just to be able to keep a loaded gun in your home, a separate license if you were a hunter or target shooter to be able to transport it in your car unloaded to and from the sporting venue. A license to carry (Keeping a gun in your car was/is considered to be carrying concealed) to this day necessitates hiring a lawyer (Dan, you’ll love this! ) and going to court in order to prove you meet at least one of the three narrow criteria that the law accepts as justifications for needing to carry concealed. And there would be someone from the D.A.’s office to contest your claim of need.
So, because I learned to like shooting in the military plus the concern with self protection, I went ahead and obtained the sport shooting license for the guns I'd already bought while in the service. If I was forced to use it at home for self defense, I figured I'd lie to the police, say I heard the intruder and loaded the pistol (Instead of the truth, which was that it was kept loaded but not in battery while at home ). As to out on the street, avoidance was the better course of action, and if ever I was forced to carry unlicensed... Well, better to be judged by twelve than carried by six (Hey, I know how stupid that sounds. I was younger and dumber then! ).
Anyway, so my fiancée comes down to visit for a couple of weeks (We lived in different cities then. Long story, not very interesting and nothing to do with MAs!). And I did the touring thing with her. On this one weekday, I decided to take her and my mom to this spectacular rain forest a couple of hours down the road. I was ambivalent about this, since though not deserted on weekdays (Tourist buses), it wasn't crowded (The main reason not to wait for the weekend), and there were less rangers on duty. On the other hand, other than car break-ins and such, there wasn't a history of really bad incidents at the park, and having the place mainly to ourselves was a big temptation. But I took them in the morning (Low lifes tend to be night creatures), and made sure to take my 9mm with a full 15 round magazine along in the car.
Things went great up until we were almost ready to leave in the early afternoon. Little traffic of any sort (A few nice folks, no potential troublemakers, some tour buses and the occasional rangers). But things started to get sour when we pulled over into the parking lot of the last observation point along the mountain's road where the rain forest was. We got out, the women ooh-ing and aah-ing the view, me in Condition Yellow out of a sense of responsibility, not really because there was a concrete reason. I was constantly sweeping the road and the entrance to the lot. About a quarter of an hour of this later, damn if I don't see an obvious bunch of gang bangers (Four of them) drive by in a car and slow down to check us out, but continue down the road. Now I'm into Condition Orange. Not wanting to panic my womenfolk, I told them in a normal tone that it was time to leave. But just as I get them in the car, and am getting into the driver's seat, darn if the gangbangers don't pull into the parking lot about 50 yards away. I reasoned that they're already in my way and can cut me off if I try to make it to one of the two exits, plus I haven't started the car yet, and the few seconds it would take to do so and get the car in gear would be all the time they'd need to pull up and brandish weapons, if they had them. So I reached under the seat for my pistol, got out of the car, with it between me and their car, held the gun in a two-handed shooting grip, got into my Weaver stance over the roof of the car, BUT POINTED THE GUN AT THE SKY SO THEY COULD SEE IT. Now, this was a stainless steel finish semi-auto, and in the bright sun it shone in all it's deadly glory! One look at that pistol, and the punks did a very brisk 180° turn and left at a brisk clip. Needless to say, I did likewise in the opposite direction! "The Art of Figthing Without Fighting" wins again.
Funny, but after this and a few other bad experiences, when I first moved to Miami and found out how much easier it was to get a CCP here, it was the second thing I did after changing to a Florida driver's license... And despite Dan's disparaging view of Miami ( ), I don't carry. I just don't feel I have a need to here... But just in case, I keep renewing it. You never know...
So, because I learned to like shooting in the military plus the concern with self protection, I went ahead and obtained the sport shooting license for the guns I'd already bought while in the service. If I was forced to use it at home for self defense, I figured I'd lie to the police, say I heard the intruder and loaded the pistol (Instead of the truth, which was that it was kept loaded but not in battery while at home ). As to out on the street, avoidance was the better course of action, and if ever I was forced to carry unlicensed... Well, better to be judged by twelve than carried by six (Hey, I know how stupid that sounds. I was younger and dumber then! ).
Anyway, so my fiancée comes down to visit for a couple of weeks (We lived in different cities then. Long story, not very interesting and nothing to do with MAs!). And I did the touring thing with her. On this one weekday, I decided to take her and my mom to this spectacular rain forest a couple of hours down the road. I was ambivalent about this, since though not deserted on weekdays (Tourist buses), it wasn't crowded (The main reason not to wait for the weekend), and there were less rangers on duty. On the other hand, other than car break-ins and such, there wasn't a history of really bad incidents at the park, and having the place mainly to ourselves was a big temptation. But I took them in the morning (Low lifes tend to be night creatures), and made sure to take my 9mm with a full 15 round magazine along in the car.
Things went great up until we were almost ready to leave in the early afternoon. Little traffic of any sort (A few nice folks, no potential troublemakers, some tour buses and the occasional rangers). But things started to get sour when we pulled over into the parking lot of the last observation point along the mountain's road where the rain forest was. We got out, the women ooh-ing and aah-ing the view, me in Condition Yellow out of a sense of responsibility, not really because there was a concrete reason. I was constantly sweeping the road and the entrance to the lot. About a quarter of an hour of this later, damn if I don't see an obvious bunch of gang bangers (Four of them) drive by in a car and slow down to check us out, but continue down the road. Now I'm into Condition Orange. Not wanting to panic my womenfolk, I told them in a normal tone that it was time to leave. But just as I get them in the car, and am getting into the driver's seat, darn if the gangbangers don't pull into the parking lot about 50 yards away. I reasoned that they're already in my way and can cut me off if I try to make it to one of the two exits, plus I haven't started the car yet, and the few seconds it would take to do so and get the car in gear would be all the time they'd need to pull up and brandish weapons, if they had them. So I reached under the seat for my pistol, got out of the car, with it between me and their car, held the gun in a two-handed shooting grip, got into my Weaver stance over the roof of the car, BUT POINTED THE GUN AT THE SKY SO THEY COULD SEE IT. Now, this was a stainless steel finish semi-auto, and in the bright sun it shone in all it's deadly glory! One look at that pistol, and the punks did a very brisk 180° turn and left at a brisk clip. Needless to say, I did likewise in the opposite direction! "The Art of Figthing Without Fighting" wins again.
Funny, but after this and a few other bad experiences, when I first moved to Miami and found out how much easier it was to get a CCP here, it was the second thing I did after changing to a Florida driver's license... And despite Dan's disparaging view of Miami ( ), I don't carry. I just don't feel I have a need to here... But just in case, I keep renewing it. You never know...
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