A Reddit user said one of the worst moments he ever had with a gun started with a phone call from his 17-year-old son. According to his comment in the thread, the boy had been walking back from the pool when he called and said some man in a truck was yelling at him and following him home. That was enough for the father to head out and meet them halfway instead of waiting inside and hoping the guy drove off on his own.
He wrote that when he got there, the man was still worked up and still talking. The father asked him what he was doing and whether there was some kind of problem with his son. Instead of calming down, the man launched into a rant about how the son had dated his niece. From the way the story was told, the father was trying to keep the whole thing from blowing up. He said he told the man he did not know what the issue was and began backing away, apparently trying to turn and head home without pushing it further.
Then the man swung at him.
The father said he had no hand-to-hand skills whatsoever, but still managed to block the punch with his arm. In doing that, he knocked his phone out of his own hand — the same phone he had already been prepared to use to call 911. That detail makes the whole thing easy to picture. He was trying to keep one hand free for the phone, trying to back the whole situation down, and then suddenly he was no longer in a shouting match. He was in a physical fight in the street with his son standing there beside him.
He said what happened next came out of nowhere, almost by reflex. In his own words, he guessed it came from watching too many cop shows. He took two steps back, drew his gun, and shouted for the man to get on the ground. Then he turned to his son and told him to pick up the dropped phone and call 911. It all happened fast enough that there was not some long dramatic exchange in the middle. The punch came, the phone hit the ground, the father backed up and drew, and the son was suddenly the one making the emergency call.
According to the story, the man’s whole attitude changed once the gun came out. He knelt down with his hands up and started trying to de-escalate. The father said the man began telling him he could put the gun away and that he would leave. The father lowered his aim, and the man got back into his truck and sped off. He added that afterward he was not even sure that had been the right call, but he also admitted he did not really want police to arrive while he was still standing there holding somebody at gunpoint in the street.
When the police arrived, the father told them what had happened. They apparently knew exactly who he was talking about just from the description of the truck. The officers took his name and the basic information, but he said they never even asked to see his concealed-carry permit or wanted more details about the gun itself. Instead, they went to visit the other man and warned him to stay away from the family.
But the story did not end there.
About a year later, according to the same comment, the father’s son was walking to the gas station when the same man allegedly tried to hit him with his truck. The son and a friend jumped out of the way, police were called again, and this time the man was actually arrested. During the arrest, officers found a leaded cane and prescription pills that were not his. When he was asked why he had done it, the man reportedly said he was still angry because the father had pulled a gun on him the year before.
The father added that the same man caught another assault charge just a month later for trying to hit someone else while he was out on bail. He said the guy apparently had all kinds of drug and mental-health issues. In the end, the man spent a year in county jail, and the son got a restraining order along with restitution. So what began as one ugly street confrontation over some grievance about a niece turned into a much longer problem that followed the family for another year and ended only after more violence and another arrest.
The story he told was straightforward and ugly. His 17-year-old son called saying a man in a truck was yelling at him and following him home. The father went out to intercept them, tried to talk the man down, got swung on, drew his gun after blocking the punch, and had his son call 911. The man backed down, sped away, and police later warned him to stay off them. Then a year later, the same man was accused of trying to hit the son with his truck, got arrested, and eventually the son ended up with a restraining order.
What do you think — if your teenage son called saying a man was following him home and then that same man took a swing at you when you confronted him, would you have done exactly what this dad did?
Original Reddit post: Have you ever had to draw your firearm on someone or something?
