SgtRage
Member
I was having a garage sale this morning. One of the things I was selling happened to be a chef's knife, about a 8" blade. Guy pulls up in a van, looks kind of disheveled. As he's browsing, he spots the knife and falls in love with it on the spot. He picks it up and asks me if I'll give it to him for free, because he doesn't have any money. He's looping it in the air a bit, about 3 feet from me, looking like he's seriously considering sinking it into me. Fortunately at this point, another customer pulls up, he takes no for an answer and leaves.
As soon as the other customer leaves, I head into the house and put on my belt slide holster and 1911, then head back out to the sale. Please note, all my neighbors know I carry openly sometimes and seem to have no problems with it, as do probably 90% of the police on our city PD. Sure enough, about 15-20 minutes later, he comes back. He hops out of the van, shaking a bottle of pills in his hand and asking if I'll trade the knife for some Loritabs or Xanax. I tell him calmly but firmly that I'm not going to sell him anything and he needs to leave. All this time I've been turned so that he can't see my sidearm. He continues coming toward me muttering something, and I turn so that he can see my sidearm. Not in a menacing way, just leaning against the car, but letting him know I have it on me, hand not even near it.
He stomps back to his van, and starts yelling something about how I'm discriminating against him because of race, and that he's going to sue me. I whip out my cell with my left hand and reply, "Ok, let's see what the cops have to say about that" He burns rubber, and at that time I notice the 3 bullet holes in the rear window of his van. These are NOT the decals that look like bullet holes. As I'm about to call the cops, a black&white driven by a cop I know pulls into the parking lot next door. I stow my sidearm in my car, walk over and tell him about it, and he takes off after the nutjob. Haven't heard anything, that was about 11 hours ago.
My reasons for posting this are; 1. Can anyone think of any way I could have handled this better? and 2. A reminder to folks that you never know what you're going to run into, even in your own yard.
And yes, the knife is going back in the kitchen.
As soon as the other customer leaves, I head into the house and put on my belt slide holster and 1911, then head back out to the sale. Please note, all my neighbors know I carry openly sometimes and seem to have no problems with it, as do probably 90% of the police on our city PD. Sure enough, about 15-20 minutes later, he comes back. He hops out of the van, shaking a bottle of pills in his hand and asking if I'll trade the knife for some Loritabs or Xanax. I tell him calmly but firmly that I'm not going to sell him anything and he needs to leave. All this time I've been turned so that he can't see my sidearm. He continues coming toward me muttering something, and I turn so that he can see my sidearm. Not in a menacing way, just leaning against the car, but letting him know I have it on me, hand not even near it.
He stomps back to his van, and starts yelling something about how I'm discriminating against him because of race, and that he's going to sue me. I whip out my cell with my left hand and reply, "Ok, let's see what the cops have to say about that" He burns rubber, and at that time I notice the 3 bullet holes in the rear window of his van. These are NOT the decals that look like bullet holes. As I'm about to call the cops, a black&white driven by a cop I know pulls into the parking lot next door. I stow my sidearm in my car, walk over and tell him about it, and he takes off after the nutjob. Haven't heard anything, that was about 11 hours ago.
My reasons for posting this are; 1. Can anyone think of any way I could have handled this better? and 2. A reminder to folks that you never know what you're going to run into, even in your own yard.
And yes, the knife is going back in the kitchen.
