The Martialist: The Magazine For Those Who Fight Unfairly

After filling up, I pulled over to the side of the lot to open my drink and flip through the paper, killing time until an appointment fifteen minutes later.

A word about the area of town I stopped in: Charleston is, for the most part, a safe city, except for the East Side. Not a day goes by without a drug-related shooting of some sort, or at the very
least the robbery and beating of an elderly person for his or her Social Security Check. Cops on bikes travel through the neighborhood late at
night and are confronted by armed bangers on a regular basis. In fact, one of my oldest friends
— who lives down there — was forced to shoot a home invader coming up his basement steps. The goblin lived,
fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it. The cops seemed mighty appreciative of the assistance.

Back to the story. With my car, when you start it, the doors automatically lock. You have to hit the lock button to get out of the vehicle. Pay attention to that little
fact. We will revisit it 

I was sitting in the car, looking down at my paper, when I heard and felt, a furious jerking on the passenger side door. I looked up and observed a large black
man wearing a backward baseball cap and some sort of a big, red jersey. It was clear he wanted to get into the car. He was
jerking and scowling and slapping the glass with the base of his palm, hoping I would unlock the
door or at least roll down the window. I was in park and there was a lot of traffic in the street in front of me,
so flooring it and running off to leave him behind really wasn’t an option. Reverse
gear wasn’t an option either, because the lot was full of cars packed to the gills with yuppie state workers and kids sucking down their Slurpees. The next option was deadly force, or at least the threat of it.

I don’t leave the house most days without a handgun. However, even though I have a CCW, I don’t always carry the gun on body. This day, my Glock 26 was secured in a Mad Dog IWB holster. I don’t carry on body every day mostly because when I am out and about visiting clients I don’t always wear a concealing
garment. I don’t want to advertise that I’m packing. Thus, my Glock was in the holster, stuck between the front seats, well within reach. As I looked at this dude, my hand went down for my
piece and his eyes followed. As my hand grabbed the grip of the piece, he knew what it meant for his future
existence and backed up slowly for about two steps.  Then he turned and ran for his life. The last time I saw him, he was reaching warp speed and disappeared into the
‘hood. My Glock didn’t clear Kydex before he broke off his attack.

I had successfully repelled a carjacking, without having to fire a shot. Massad Ayoob, Clint Smith,
and Ken Hackathorn would slap me on the back and note that I had done everything just the right way. No one got
hurt and the worst thing for my would-be attacker was the sudden need to change his feces-filled boxers.

Let us pretend that the car wasn’t locked, or at the very least, the window was down. He could have gotten in and invaded my personal space in record time. I would have been
fucked then. 

A banger would be in the car, tussling with me, and during this encounter I would be trying to jack a round in the chamber of my pistol. Not a good position to be in. “So, you jump out of the
car and make ready on the way, making a little space between you and the bad
guy,” you might say.  Not so fast; I was buckled into my seat belt. Escape and evasion wouldn’t be so easy. Chances are, he could have gotten the gun away from me in that case.

A reader might also suggest that I surrender the wheels and collect the insurance.
This is a quite reasonable answer for someone driving an 86 Cavalier with 199,000 miles and nothing in the back seat except a smelly pair of tennis shoes and a baby seat. However, that is not an option for me. I was driving a car that retailed, when new, for
$35,000 and contained a cell phone that wasn’t mine, a $500 digital camera that I paid for with my own money, and a loaded 9mm handgun. I wasn’t going to chance that gun turning up in some
murder and my car ending up in a chop shop. I am stubborn and cheap. I work for everything I
have and had no intention of turning it over to some crackhead without a fight. I don’t
“owe” that to anyone.

There was the cutlery option. I was carrying a Spyderco Civilian tucked in the waistband on my right. If it all went to shit, I could have drawn that knife and gone to work with it. However, what if I was in a wrestling match with said goblin? Could I have slashed him with my right hand while holding him back with
my left? A hard question, to be sure. That knife might have ended up carving my fat white ass instead of his.

Coulda, woulda, shoulda. I have no way of knowing what would have happened had he gotten in. It is nothing other than an interesting theoretical exercise based on facts. All I know is, after I got done
shaking and thanking God that I got out of there in one piece, I got it together and evacuated that neighborhood in short order. Would I pull the trigger if it had come to that, you ask? I can
say yes, without a doubt. I am not planning on dying anytime soon, if I have any say in the matter, and I certainly didn’t want to end up on Eyewitness News, lying in a pool of my own blood, portraying the role of victim of the week. The truth is, I made it home.

There is value to this true story, however. It gives us all an excuse to think of what we would have done, what we would have carried, and what sacrifices we would have made. I welcome
comments and suggestions from the readers about this article. Tell me how you would have handled it differently. Would you carry a different gun than I did? Different holster options? Would you have floored it, even if there were cars in front and in rear? Let’s hear it. I am a big boy, and I can take it.