Has your carry Gun ever been used (Outside practice)?

Someone was trying to force his way into my neighbor's house. The door was ajar. He was trying to shove it open, and she was trying to shove it closed. He was a very intoxicated stranger yelling obscenities at the top of his lungs. He didn't even notice me yelling at him to leave. I fired a round into the mud at the base of a tree, told him the next one was for him, and he immediately ran off.

I'm glad I was there to protect the neighbor lady, and glad I didn't have to shoot him.

I had to put down a arthritic old horse after I found evidence of him being stalked by a cougar who came down from the high country looking for vittles one winter.
The evidence? Killed stock, including a dog, on the neighbor's ranch plus cougar tracks in the pasture where the old boy was living out his retirement.
I figured it was kinder than letting him get eaten alive by a cat.
The skull is hanging on my back fence

I would have used a .22 but there was a .22 ammo shortage at the time.

Never fired in anger and hope that by being prepared to do so, I never have to.

I've killed a couple deer with my 10mm, but that is as close to "needing" my sidearm as I've ever come. And I intend to keep it that way.

stevekozak writes:

You did not have a "None of your darn business" selection, so I did not vote. I don't understand why people ask these questions.

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Questions posed are for those who wish to answer. In other words, no one asked you, so there's no need to get all huffy about it. You could simply have ignored the thread. I'm sure there have been other threads and questions here on THR that were not relevant to you, and you were able to skip past them fine.

My wife and I were walking on a suburban sidewalk, and a pitbull comes straight at us barking like a mad dog. My hands immediately lifted my cover garment and took a firing grip. The animal either recognized this action, or an owner I couldn't see immediately used a whistle or other silent command to call him off. I didn't go to count two of the drawstroke.

I was only conscious of recognizing the threat and the threat's retreat. My hands moved automatically. Very cool.

Love the new final answer. almost spit my coffee out on the screen.

FlSwampRat said:

Love the new final answer. almost spit my coffee out on the screen.

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Trust me, FISwampRat - I've been around here a few years now, and if there's one thing I've learned, it's that it's probably best to not be drinking coffee or any other beverage that you could spit all over your screen or keyboard when you're on THR.

RedlegRick said:

I shot a rat with mine a couple years ago. Big one, too, I live next to a rail line that carries garbage out of NYC. Didn't bother weighing it, but it was roughly the size of a house cat.

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We call those opossum around here lol!

Oh, and only 3 times, one 'possum, one rat, and one neighbor dog trying to eat my ducks. He got away with a warning shot! Fastest I've ever seen a dog run!

theotherwaldo said:

I took two steps back and presented my Glock. He dropped the shovel and backed off.

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Sigh... Don't bring a shovel to a gunfight. Unless you're there to bury the loser.

-He thought it was a dogfight - with a tethered dog... .

My little 42 Glock works fine on Armadillos, but I can hit them better with my 40 cal Hi-power.

Pure2nd said:

Oh, and only 3 times, one 'possum, one rat, and one neighbor dog trying to eat my ducks. He got away with a warning shot! Fastest I've ever seen a dog run!

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I leave possums alone. Too valuable getting rid of ticks, mice, and rats. Nature's garbage disposal.

RedlegRick said:

I leave possums alone. Too valuable getting rid of ticks, mice, and rats. Nature's garbage disposal.

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He was rabid and wounded, disoriented and angry...shooting the rat was much more fun.

MutinousDoug said:

Military carry? Yes.
Civilian carry? No.

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Same answer. With slightly more ambiguity. I have placed my hand on my firearm during some hair raising moments as a civilian. Whether it was obvious to whomever was causing the sensation, I cannot guess. And I hope I never have to. Using firearms in the military was enough paperwork for me to deal with.

Since some have been including military carry, I did fire my M16A1 in hunger. A squirrel kept running between two scrub oaks in front of my foxhole on an FTX at Camp Roberts. I unscrewed my BFA, and stuck a section of cleaning rod down the bore, waited for him to stop in front of me, and fired. the rod pinned him to the ground, he was dead before I got there. . I dug a little fire pit in the 'magazine ledge', found two sticks with crooks in them, and grabbed several of the numerous dry cow chips nearby. Gutted and skun the squirrel, tossed some trioxane bars under the dung, and fired it up, using the cleaning rod section as a rotisserie. When I offered some to my fellow soldier in the foxhole, she replied I was a "Backwoods Savage." Sure beat the hell out of the MREs I'd been eating for a week......
I also cracked a few blanks at a covey of quail we kicked up on a road march. Reflexes...

Got this cotton mouth with my G43. Stood on his tail when I shot him. 147 golden saber did its job nicely

Pure2nd writes

He was rabid and wounded, disoriented and angry...

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I had one several years ago acting disoriented late one night on my back deck. I called the PD for animal control, figuring they'd want to know if it was indeed rabid so the disease could be documented and tracked. I was told that opossums do not get rabies, but they'd still come if I needed them to. Other than rabies, I had no other concerns, so I let it go and did some reading up. Sure enough, I earned opossums maintain a body temperature slightly higher than that of other mammals in their size class, and that elevated temperature seems to make them largely immune from the rabies virus.

So, I learned something new that night, and I'm from the land of possums (my first job was even at a farm named after them.)

Old Florida joke: Why did the chicken cross the road? To show the possum that it can be done.

I threw down on a cow at work one night.



I was walking around an electrical substation in the wee hours of the morning.

Every so often I stopped and shined my light out into the field next to me to see if anyone was walking up on me. On one pass I saw something big and black then I saw an eye.

Being in Colorado I assumed bear (we have bears wandering into pizzerias around here) and drew.

Then I heard a Moooooo.

Had a couple of guys try to rob me outside my apartment one night but I don't think I even cleared the holster before they backed down.

FlSwampRat said:

Sigh... Don't bring a shovel to a gunfight. Unless you're there to bury the loser.

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Reminds me of the line in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly...

"You see, in this world there's two kinds of people, my friend: Those with loaded guns and those who dig. You dig."

Pure2nd said:

He was rabid.

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The instance of Rabies in possums is extremely rare.

Yup, scouting in the woods before hunting season I met up with a trio of feral dogs. I was glad I had my 22Lr revolver with me at the time. Good for me, not the dogs...

aside from successfully defending myself from a cougar and a bear (on seperate ocasions) i have twice used my EDC to fill my deer tag. last fall with my 1911 @ 40 yeards... good chance to check hollowpoint performance.

I’ve shot, or shot at more than a few animals with my carry gun, most (but not all) of them were no immediate threat to me.

I’ve also shot many holes in things I don’t want to hold water, like my trash can and the end of the driveway. Put a few .45 caliber holes in something and it want hold water.

A gun is multi tool if you do it right.