bailey-
I travel all over the city and region and volunteer my time in some pretty rough areas of town. The times I've had to draw my weapon mainly consisted of incidents where peolpe that I felt were a threat to me or my family were getting between us as we moved along. It happened three times around the Old Shelighlie [[sp?) bar, cutting through the alley between the parking lot and the bar. It even happened once even at Cobo, as I had sent my family on ahead of me and they were being accosted by a very belligerent and angry person when I approached. He changed his attitude immediately after staring down the barrel of my 10mm and the threat that I percieved was averted.
Also, when we owned a pool business, I was in and around the city a lot with money, which almost always makes you a target in my opinion. I felt that the situation elevated itself to a "black" threat and drawing or just hiking up my shirt [[in some cases) proved enough of a deterrent to assuage the situation.
Lastly, I served as a reserve cop in the 15th for a brief period. Most of the time we were able to avert any armed confrontation, but there were a couple of times that it served as a deterrent enough to stop what was going on. I can honestly say that I am grateful that I never had to shoot when I drew, as most of the time the upper hand was gained by simply implying that the weapon would go off if they continued to escalate the situation.
As far as going to or not going to places in the city that I enjoy, the answer is no, I won't back down. The criminal element, in my opinion, needs to know that they can never ever tell who will be confronting them and whether they have a weapon or not is a strong deterrent to them even acting to begin with. Perhaps if more people understood this, the possibility that people would have bigger and better means to protect themselves would be enough of a deterrent to stop them.
Lord knows that you can not depend on the cops in this city to do that for you, as we have all clearly seen in the recent future and throughout the years. Sometimes we must make tough decisions, I guess, and that includes doing everything to protect yourselves from these ravenous thugs.
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