*Road RAGER pointed a guns at meEDIT: words are hard with little sleep and lack of coffee, List Format.Yesterday I was heading home from class and I was on the phone (hands free) with my girlfriend like I am every day. Traffic was heavy like it always is. I had my CCW in my AIWB holster, which is uncommon during colder weather (I typically carry OWB at 3:00 underneath my coat/hoodie); however, I am used to this, and put my cover garment over my lap belt to make my CCW more readily accessible and have spent significant time drawing one handed seated in my car working on my one-handed draw to simulate my draw while driving.I’m in the left lane with a car in front of me when I clock a guy driving a sport coupe comes racing up on my bumper with a semi on my right. I can’t really go anywhere, but I know I don’t want this guy behind me and prepare to switch lanes once I overtake the semi. I have enough of an opening to move over in front of the semi without being a total dick bag and begin executing my merge. As I do this, the guy in the coupe decided he was going to try and thread the needle as the car that was in front of me had to nail the brakes. I was boxed in and had nowhere to go and nothing to do except punch it into this lane and pray to avoid a 4 vehicle wreck, and try and alert the car to my front left and the semi of the hazard by railing the horn. The car in front moves to the shoulder, and the semi does the same on his side as the guy in the coupe threads the needle between me and this semi and passes me, all the while flipping the bird at me as he passes in front of me. I’m not happy about it, but I don’t care. I avoided an accident, the a-hole is in front of me, and I have no interest in further engaging and de-escalate by backing way off from this guy, as he’s swerving in and out of traffic, nearly causing 3 more accidents in the span of about 30 seconds.Half a mile up another lane opens up on the right and the guy in the guy in the coupe (still making hand gestures and behaving aggressively) pulls into it and begins slowing down, looks out the window and pulls a gun and points it at me. I slow down dramatically and tell my girlfriend very abruptly that I need to go, hang up, call 911, and clear my cover garment and prepare to draw if this guy continues escalating. He’s about 70’ in front of me so I know he doesn’t have a high chance of hitting me and I continue to slow down and start looking for my way out of the situation, as he keeps going, all the while giving the description of the car (with a useless temp. Paper license plate that is folded over in the wind) until a split in the freeway comes up. He goes one way, I go the other. I hang up with 911, my phone goes into SOS protocol before I can stop it, and my entire family starts calling to ask if I’m okay, I say yes, they ask what’s going on, I play it down to a guy trying to run me off the road, because I frankly don’t want to re-hash this with them, 4 times. And as far as I know, the cops never even went looking for the guy (not surprising, given the anti-police climate in my metro area). End of scenario.As far as I’m concerned, I won. I got to go home to my girlfriend, I didn’t have to shoot. I didn’t have to use my gun to stop the threat.My take aways:-Be aware of your surroundings.-Have a plan for a scenario like this one, and be ready to employ it. Think it through repeatedly.-Drive defensively, and don’t engage road ragers. It’s an impulse of mine I’m happy to see myself letting go.-As soon as I saw the gun, the thoughts that came in the back of my mind were my gratitude that I had my extra mag, and that I had ran drills at the range the day before.-your CCW is an absolute LAST RESORT. Don’t look for an opportunity to use it-be prepared for the SOS if you call 911, and be ready to calmly talk things down mid-adrenaline dump.-I went home and deep cleaned my CCW (quick cleaned it after the range) and this was very therapeutic for me.-the crash post-adrenaline dump is real. Go to bed early if possible.-be prepared to have the scenario play out in your head while you sleep.the evolution of preparation for self defense is constant. Make sure to keep up with it.I hope that others can learn from this encounter, and I’m open to feedback. via /r/CCW https://ift.tt/3Ej79De
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