Once, a Maybe, and an attempted mugging
Once:
When I was 4 or 5, we were getting in the car to go to church on a sunday morning. Some damned idiot shot the car window out with either a pellet or a .22 from the woods. My older sister threw me onto the floor and covered me (we raise em brave in our family) while dad went charging through the brush like a bear. He didn't catch the teenage punk, who ran like hell.
A Maybe:
OK, ya'd think a guy would know if someone pulled a gun on him, ya'll be the judge. I'm 17 or 18, working a convenience store. A fellow comes to the register, asks for smokes, and drops $3 on the register. With his hand in his pocket, he says, "I've got a gun, are the cigarettes free?" I hand him his change, close the till, and tell him "Nope", with a big smile. The fellow blinks, and leaves. I sicced the cops on him, just in case he DID have a gun, and had thoughts of round 2. My guess is what I told the cop, "I didn't see a gun, and I really doubt he had one, but you never can tell for sure, and if he really wanted to rob the place, he sure went about it in a half assed way. Had he actually pulled one out, I'd have let him clean out the whole store. He went thataway on foot."
Attempted mugging:
TFL & THR folks have heard this one before, and it gets shorter with each telling.
While heading to my car in a Philly parking lot at night, I was approached by a wary fellow spewing some line of BS, who was clearly looking for me to provide him an opportunity to close with me the moment I took my attention off him. (See mugging dynamics 101) Fortunately, my inner alarms clanged up to yellow when he rounded the corner, and red when he started his patter. The result was what I call a dynamic stalemate. I couldn't get to my driver's door without turning my back to him and I wasn't taking my eyes off him for a second. After a minute of telling him to go away, I figured the only way to break the stalemate was to get my boken out of my trunk, and show him I meant it, but I couldn't hit the lock with the damned key without looking at it. Fortunately, a friend drove up to check on me from the other end of the lot. He stepped out of his car and reached under his jacket. The would be mugger fled, saying, "I ain't messing with no gun!".
Moral of the story:
I'm a normal guy, who doesn't go looking for trouble, but if you start asking around, you'll find that trouble finds most folks at least a couple of times as we do our life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.