Damned B-Guns. One hell of a first day man. I often wonder that myself.

First time I ever almost dropped the hammer on anybody I was walking around an apartment complex at about 2AM seeing what was going down in the area. You know, just getting a feel for the drunks and gang bangers you often see around that time there.

A car pulled up and parked just off the property, blacked out for a moment, then turned its lights back on and parked in the first available spot in the parking lot across the street from me. A male gets out of the front passenger side, and another gets out of the rear drivers side. The front passenger was yelling at another passenger in the back passenger side how he would take him around the corner behind an apartment building, and cut his neck where nobody could see it(HUGE RED FLAG!!). The driver side rear was doing the usual "I’m big and wanna be involved, but not get my hands dirty" and taunting the back passenger to come out and fight his buddy to the death. Female driver was just sitting there in shock…

I called over the radio for backup, and crossed the street, but remained out of sight and behind cover only 15-20 yards from the group of morons. When the back passenger continued to refuse to fight his buddy, the aggressor opens the back door to the car screams "I'm gonna kill you!" and all I see his fist swinging on the helpless passenger through the window and I hear screams.

My first reaction is, "oh shit, this guy is getting stabbed! I gotta help!" I move out to a position in the lot where I was still covered but now visible to the aggressor and the "taunter". I gave them both loud verbal commands to stop what they were doing and let me see their hands(of course there were a few choice words at that time.)

Upon review, I don’t remember my sidearm clearing leather(Beretta 92FS INOX at the time), just that I now had a faint sight picture in the lower part of my vision. Muscle memory was taking over. I knew my finger was off the trigger and I was at a ready position aimed just below their feet.

Both the aggressor and the "taunter" came into the open, but Mr. aggressor was still not showing me his hands, and my comfort level was falling. "Taunter" obeyed my commands and proned out on the ground for me, eyes facing away, arms spread, and palms up, but aggressor was still not listening to me. He began to get more angry, screaming and yelling about how its always the police's fault, and how he would take me out too. I still could not see his hands, and felt threatened by the fact he was moving towards me and I was now his 100% focus.

I remember acquiring a perfect sight picture on his center mass as i was yelling for him to show me his hands. At that exact moment I saw the oh so familiar red/blue glow on surrounding buildings, and heard the wail of sirens. He gave up, right then. Hands straight up, turned around, and proned out. As soon as I saw empty hands going up, I returned to a ready position, and covered my backup as they detained the two morons and covered the car.

For the next few moments I was trying to figure out why I couldn’t get my damn holster to snap shut(basic Safariland Top-Gun). I finally realized when I looked down what was wrong. The hammer on my sidearm was at half cock. That dumb SOB had come withing about 1/16th of an inch worth of trigger pull from becoming hamburger.

Guy in the back seat hadn’t gotten stabbed, just punched in the face a whole hell of a lot, messing him up pretty bad. Female driver was a little stunned, but this obviously wasn’t her first rodeo either, she went to detox on a DUI. 2 idiots went to jail for assault, and the victim went to the hospital then detox.

This had some minor effects on me. Some messed up nights of sleep, odd dreams, and even a few where I did actually take the guy out. But I was OK with that. I knew that I hadn't dont it, and if I had, I would have been justified.

This is why I always say, train when you can, then make some extra time to train, then lose a little sleep to train a little more. Prepare for it as much as possible, train your ass off, and read some books so you know what how your body will react. And ALWAYS make sure you come home at the end of the day. This whole thing came down to muscle memory, and I probably could have gotten away with shooting the SOB… But that’s not what I am out there for.