so who taught him the rules to carry?

[MarkCO]

If I'm walking with my wife, and we get surrounded by say, 5 guys, who say they are going to do something, there is pretty much no way I'm going to be able to prevent them from doing whatever they want. In that situation, I have to imagine that I'd enter a state of duress pretty quickly. At what point is a verbal threat from someone enough to engage? If some random dude says something, and only says something, that isn't enough reason to engage in my opinion. If it's 5 dudes, that's an entirely different story. Thoughts?

Engagement for me, is the use of verbal Judo. I would be trying to create distance or at least cut down angles of exposure. The use of lethal force requires you to be in fear for your life or of grave bodily harm. In my usage, the "you" applies to my family first and me second, other innocent life third.

There is no textbook answer, but worth consideration, even if not spelled out in detail on a forum.