a couple
I have had a variety of encounters over the (many) years, some pretty violent but not involving firearms or intruders. A couple of intruder incidents, one of which actually involves a firearm.
Back in the mid 80s I was living in a condo in a restored building in the lakes district of Minneapolis. The house next door was owned by a woman in her 70s who rented the upstairs to several young women. I got to know my neighbor and used to give her a hand, mostly if she needed some heavy lifting done. I was practicing downtown at the time and in my off hours weight lifting and training in traditional karate, and my neighbor had talked with me about being scared living alone. She knew the police response time could be long, and she asked if she could call me if she was scared or had a problem. I told her of course.
So, she had called once and I had gone over, walked around the house and told her I did not see anyone. Early a.m. one summer night she calls, says she thinks someone is trying to get in back door. She called 911, got put on hold
, so hung up and called me. I told her I would come right over. I got out of bed and slipped into some jeans. As an afterthought I slipped the only handgun I owned, a Ruger standard .22, into the back of the jeans and went out, hopped the fence into the yard and started a circuit of the house towards the back door. I was pretty sure it was a false alarm, but as I came around the corner, there was a guy with a knife, cutting the screen on the door.
So I said, "Hey, ________, what are you doing?" He stood up, faced me, and said, "_________, I have a knife." I pulled the mighty Ruger out, and as I had not put a round in the chamber, ran the slide. I said, "OK - I have a gun." So now I am facing a guy with a knife, anout 20-25 feet. With a .22.
The guy said, "_________" and turned, ran away. Really fast.
So I knocked on the door, found my neighbor and the 2 girls from upstairs terrified, having listened to this clever exchange. She told me she got through to 911. I told them I chased the guy off and I would fix the screen the next day.
So I went home, sat for a bit and let the delayed shock wear off, then went back to bed. I was just drifting off when the police finally arrived. So I got up, and 2 officers came over to get a statement. When I came to the gun part, one of them started to chew me out with a "you can't going around pointing guns at people" line. :banghead: I was pretty snotty with my reply, but the other officer told the one who made the comment to go outside and photo the door or something. Then the officer told me that the gun comment was pretty obviously out of line, that they arrived something like 20 minutes or so after the 911 call, and he thanked me for being a good neighbor.
Moral of the story: next time, bring more gun.
Later, I moved back to my hometown and in the late 80s, early 90s I was living in a floating home moored to an island in the Mississippi, across from the town. The house rocked in the wind and waves, of course, but I could always wake up at noises or movements that were out of place. So one summer night about 2:30 am I wake up. I am lying in bed listening and wondering what woke me - and I realize I hear someone downstairs. I slip out of bed, throw on some gym shorts, and creep down the stairs. In the living room, there are two guys busy unhooking my audio-video components.
So I hit the light switch, they jump, and I am mad. Really mad.
I also knew that they were in shorts and t-shirts without any weapons, they were scrawny kids, and that there was a .380 Beretta in a clip under the lip of the old wooden bar, just a couple of feet from me.
Did I mention I was mad? My best friends would tell you that nobody in their right mind should be anywhere near me for the first 15 minutes or so after I wake up. My
dogs don't even like me for the first 15 minutes. I always say that it is nothing that several Red Bull and a large coffee does not cure - but I was just awakened and pretty owly. Before I knew it, I was channeling R. Lee Ermy and had the guys standing at attention in the middle of the living room, staring at the wall while I paced back and forth, ranting at them.
They were late teens, scrawny and scared.
At some point, I asked for ID, and one of them had a DL. Then it dawned on me that they were
drunk and that they had
driven down to the island, and I was off on a new rant about how much I hated drunk drivers on the bridge, on and on.
Did mention I am a little grumpy when first waking up?
Finally, I come up with a plan, and I tell them to stay at attention while I go up and get dressed. I warn them that if they try to run, I ran track in college, it is 400 yards in the dark back to the road, and I know where the trees are - they don't. I go upstairs, dress, come back down. They are still there, standing at attention. I march them back to the road, they show me their car, and I tell them the deal. They can start hiking back across the bridge and leave the car. I am going home and I am going to sleep in, since they woke me up in the middle of the night, and I am
still mad about that. Then I will get up, walk over to my neighbor's, we will make a pot of coffee and I will tell him about this whole thing. Then we will walk up and if the car is still not there, it means they drove drunk
again, and I will report them for burglary and DUI. If the car is there,all would be forgiven. They started hiking, the car was still there in the morning when we walked up to check. So I forgot about it for a few months until I get a call to see someone in the jail who got picked up - and it is one of the kids. 
He was really embarassed and apologetic when he realized who I was, and I told him not a big deal - I had mostly been snarly about the fact that they woke me up. He said they talked about that on the hike - that I was mostly really mad about getting woke up, pretty mad about driving drunk, and not all that upset about their coming into my house and trying to steal my stuff.
So I represented the kid, he got straightened out, and I still see him around town from time to time - married, kids, job, house. We keep the burglary incident as a private joke. Point is - they were committing a felony, in my home. Lots of discussions center on an immediate violent response, and I could have knocked them around, or worse, but I didn't. They were just dumb, drunk kids. I am glad I handled i the way I did.
) and took off on foot down the road toward a dark car that was stopped further down the block with it's lights off, engine running and passenger door open. As I gave chase he dove into the open door and the car sped off. It was too dark to get the license plate number from the distance I was behind, and the lights were off on it. The only description I could give was that it was a male white who I chased, and a description of the car. They got away, but there wasn't another car stolen, broken into or stripped on that block for over a year.
