I discharged my weapon.

It’s almost embarrassing to post this lmao, but I shot my weapon defensively and dealt with the police afterwards.This happened a few months ago but here we go.My girlfriend and I went on a morning hike in a low populated area it’s unusual to see another vehicle in this park.We’re getting out of the car and I put my gun on my hip like usual (SCCY CPX1 with red dot for those curious) and she says to me “why do you always have to carry a gun” and I said because it’s better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.We make it about 5 minutes into the trail when I hear the bushes shaking and something moving in them. I stop and watch and A coyote pops out, strange right? A coyote at 7 in the morning. It began growling and making all sorts of weird noises. Holy shit holy shit my blood starting pumping and adrenaline shot up like crazy. It started walking towards us from about 10-15 yards away. We began backing up and I was shouting at it and waving my arms. It did nothing to deter it. It kept advancing.My girlfriend took the fuck off and left me standing there which riled it up even more. It got to that point where I drew my gun and aimed at it while still yelling. I kept backing up and it kept walking up on me.I stopped and had enough, I wasn’t going to turn my back and run and have it chase after me. It was a pretty big coyote although I’m sure I could kick the shit out of it I didn’t feel like being bit by a wild animal. I shot 3 times and hit it atleast once. It ran away back into the bushes/trees and didn’t hear another thing from it.My girlfriend came back and said “why would you shoot it why would you do that?” And I asked her what else I was supposed to do, she goes “well fight it off” I had to laugh at that one… the gun shots freaked her out she supports conceal carry but guns still scare the piss out of her.I had a internal debate on wether or not to call the DNR or not, and decided yes I needed to. I waited a hour for them to show up and I talked with the conservation officer for a while. He did his check on me in his car and all that non sense took my report and that was that. Nothing came of it but he saw the blood and we looked for the animal for a bit but didn’t find anything. On his way he went.The chances of this happening are probably 5 million to 1 but it did happen, unexpectedly and extremely fast. It was really eye opening to see how I reacted and how my response was. I was slow on the draw, my shirt got snagged I’m happy it was an animal not a human.Just figured I’d share this with you guys, maybe someone can take something away from all this, hope you had a great and safe weekend. via /r/CCW https://ift.tt/3mjVbSk