Perspective from Both Ends of a Pistol

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I have been at both ends of a pistol, with a life hanging in the balance.

Both times it was the life of a crook that was one trigger pull away from ending. One time it was a crook in a parking lot of a gas station, trying to strong arm me out of money. Once I was the crook in the parking lot being strong armed by the police. The view is quite different depending on which end you’re on.

It was a hot summer day in a small suburb of Phoenix. I pulled my vehicle next to a gas pump behind a small imported car. As I put my car in park and began to step out, I felt the gentle nudge of the import as it backed into my vehicle, hitting my bumper. The two young men in the car stepped out aggressively, hands up, vulgarities spewing from their lips. Before they could reach me they told me I could settle this for $100. I informed them that they were running the scam on the wrong guy and they could get their money by conning someone else.

That was when the driver said,

“I’m getting my 9,” and followed it with a long list of expletives describing me.

Even though we were near some of the best golf courses in Phoenix, I was certain he didn’t mean his 9 iron. His friend followed him to the car and they both got in. I stepped quickly to my vehicle as the driver reached into the console, spun the car around, and sped towards me.

I stood to keep my vehicle between me and the thugs and rested my freshly retrieved .44 magnum on the hood, aiming at the line of travel that would carry the slow moving car and the thugs past me, less than 30 feet away. As the young man came into view, he had one hand on the steering wheel and one hand out of sight. When he noticed my pistol his eyes grew huge. He had driven himself directly in front of my gun. I needed only to squeeze the trigger to end his life. But I didn’t and he accelerated as fast as he could, speeding away, and leaving me shaken.

I was seconds away from taking a life, I was so glad I hadn’t and was reminded of a situation I was in decades prior.

I had been involved in a store robbery. I was not working at the store, I was not working near the store—I was working with the thief, which made me a thief. And although my accomplice didn’t have a gun, he made everyone believe that he did. The cops who came to round us up got the call that two armed suspects had just robbed the store, and they were acting accordingly. After my wrists were cuffed behind me and the full weight of the officer left my torso, I turned my head and was shocked to see an officer re-holstering his weapon. I was not only at the wrong end of a pistol, but I was in a scuffle and posed a threat in the officer’s mind. I was 3 pounds of trigger pressure away from becoming a statistic.

That moment flashed through my mind as the con artists at the gas station looked at the end of my pistol. By that time I had changed. I had a wife, two kids, and fantastic job. I had been sober and straight for over a decade. My future looked incredible. I would go on to speak and influence people who are much like the crooks I saw over the hood of my car, staring at the end of my pistol. My life had grown to mean something, and I could not take that opportunity away from him unless my life was directly in jeopardy. I could tell, the instant he drove into view that it wasn’t. If he had a gun he was much too scared to pull it into my view.

In a moment like that, time slows to a crawl. I had time to think and I like to believe that my better self was making decisions that day. I knew that young man could become something if he wanted. I also knew that I am not a murderer. I only had my gun out to preserve my own life. My prerogative was not to decide if he got to live, only to make sure that I did. Fortunately I did, and so did he.

We are watching the killing of criminals by cops, the killing of cops by criminals, and the murder of innocent people by incompetent officers on a regular basis. We watched as white officers shot and killed Alton Sterling, a black man, selling music. Dylan Noble, a young white man, was systematically shot and killed as he lay on the ground, unarmed, by a gang of police. And of course Philando Castile, a beloved black man, was shot four times in front of his girlfriend and her child, reaching for his wallet. Then there was the vigilante sniper Michael Johnson who murdered 5 officers in Dallas as “payback” to something for which none of his victims were involved.

And now we are divided, debating issues such as race and policy. There are many pot stirrers who have something to gain from the turmoil they cause and the hate they propagate. But race and policy are not at the root of this problem. The real problem stems from a lack of vision.

The killers did not have a vision of what Alton Sterling, Dylan Noble, Philando Castile or the 5 officers in Texas could be. None of their killers imagined a better version of their victim. All they could see was anger, hate, or fear which clouded their judgment. Unfortunately right now, those in the lime-light of these tragedies are promoting more anger, hate and fear, which only makes the problem worse.

We have to have a higher level of belief in each other if we want this to stop. No amount of civil rights laws will correct power hungry cops, hardened criminals, or angry vigilantes. We can’t accept bills and proposals from agenda-driven representatives, or marches and protests organized by people seeking attention, as a remedy to short-sighted thinking. They can’t fix this, but we can. The only thing that will correct this is a huge shift in our vision towards each other. When we can look at the potential of those we find ourselves at odds with, we can see their value. And that will save lives, from either end of a pistol.

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Photo: Getty Images