Written by someone who has never been in an actual life threatening situation. But that’s fine. Either you’ve lived it or you’re straight up imagining an unpredictable outcome. As someone who did bounty hunting and repo work decades ago, people will kill you for pure emotional reasons. Most have little impulse control and there is no bargaining, reasoning, de-escalation or sanity. I’ve been shot at, shot, stabbed and hit by a car and let me tell you your diatribe of wishful thinking is just that. I’ve been in two justified shootings (no one dead but one went to prison) and the last thing I ever wanted to do was pull my weapon but circumstances really did not permit that. People are insane and have few restraints from escalation and that was 20 years ago. Needless to say I’m no longer in that field but in 2023 I would think people are even more dangerous today. What I did was one hell of an adrenaline rush and I loved doing it but I wanted to get out of a job that could literally kill you. And here is the kicker. One of the shootings didn’t even involve repo or bounty. I was taking a friend home late at night and some guy was outside dressed as Rambo creeping between trees. I didn’t see a gun so we sat there and watched. Next thing I know he’s shirtless and carrying a rifle with a sling and he levels it towards my car and starts firing. Keep in mind this is in a city neighborhood, houses everywhere. Now we’re both trapped in a driveway with a guy shooting. So I returned fire (you know, I’m already carrying) and got off 5 shots from about 30 yards away and he hit the ground. We took off in the car and he gets back up and starts firing again. I didn’t fire back, just hauled ass hoping me or my friend didn’t get shot. We called the cops of course and found out after we blew out of there, the neighbors started coming outside to see what was going on (morons) and he started shooting at them. Insane. Turns out he was a security guard and besides me, shot at 4 more people. Amazingly no one was shot. Still not sure how but no one was hit. Later in court he lamely tried to claim it was warning shots because he felt threatened. Didn’t work. Prison for him. Feel free to explain how your de-escalation plan would work in my situation. Did I want to shoot? No. Did he give me a choice? Not that I could see. Freaked me out for a while because it was so random. I also made it a point to get more training and range time because thr 5 rounds I sent his way were not a warning, I was aiming to drop him right there but I missed. 30 yards. Most people do not have an idea what adrenaline does to all of your great plans until it happens. And he was able to get back up and continue firing so I failed there. Due to my miss, me or my friend could have been killed. I stepped out of repo and bonds shortly after. But lesson learned. Train well. Expect the unexpected and never be the aggressor or pretend your attacker has reasoning abilities. They do not. One minute I’m taking a friend home and the next minute I have a shirtless Rambo wannabe with a 30-30 Marlin trying to end my life. This was not in a typically bad city either. Your plans may sound good to you, but they may be incompatible with the mind of the criminal. It’s protect yourself and your family and friends. I am not in the least concerned about the health or feelings of the person trying to kill me. Have I been in another situation where I had to draw my weapon? Once but once the guy saw I was armed, he thought better of f*cking with me and walked away cursing at me because I had a gun. I didn’t even point it at him, he saw it in my hand and that was all that was needed to stop it from escalating. It could have gone differently if he decided to bull up and continue at me but it didn’t happen. Your scenario sounds more like a couple of drunk idiots outside a bar going at it. Why I avoid bars and other situations where ego might be leading the charge. Your rosy solution is comedic, victims rarely get a say in their attack unless there is an equalizer. I will say that a large percentage of LTC ppl probably shouldn’t be carrying because they just do not have the training to justly handle a confrontation. But it’s their right. I do agree that stepping out of sketchy situations is the best choice but criminals do not always see it that way. Good luck reasoning with them. Note that in all of my situations there was zero dialogue between us. Just criminals doing criminal things who don’t want to have a discussion. Your solution is far from a one size fits all plan of action.
But hey, good luck witb that. Make sure your life insurance premiums are current.