With all that's been going on this week, I felt that I needed to share this.

This incident happened in the spring of 89' or 90. I don't remember the date, sorry. This incident also happened within a 6 week span of me being held up in an armed robbery at a motel I worked night shift for. It was a bad year and I was 20 at the time.

It was early afternoon, about 2-3pm and I was stopping by a local convince store to get a coke (Dr. Pepper). I grabbed my drink and headed over to the magazine rack to see if my favorite gun rag at the time was in (S.O.F.). When all of a sudden I heard several women screaming then Bam, Bam, Bam, Bam.......I squatted down and tried to see what was going on.

I saw a late 20yr old woman with a handgun (pocket revolver) shooting into the rear of the store (kind of a grease pit grill, snack bar). I heard her say "Bitch you betta stay way from my man". Then she ran out. This all took place in the span of just a few seconds.

No one was hit with her shots, but there was a woman in the restroom who got cut by flying pieces of mirror. Since I was near the front I got a decent description of the woman and of the get away car. I still remember the details today as well as the guys that held me up, really kind of weird. Anyway the police arrived fairly quick~7min IIRC and radioed to other units who eventually caught the suspect after the vehicle description I gave.

The reason I'm sharing this today is that this situation happened so very fast I had almost no time to do anything. I remember clearly thinking "hey there is a boat oar at the end of the isle, I can beat the crap out of her". There just wasn't time, it was over in a matter of seconds.

Outside of drawing a holstered gun, there was not anything anyone could have done. The lessons I took away from this experience have helped me become a stronger individual and act with firm resolution. I thank Susan Hupp for her instrumental role in getting the Texas Legislature to enact concealed carry laws.

For those of you who have not had a violent encounter of any kind I encourage you to "war-game" senarios as much as possible. Because when it goes down, it goes down extremely fast. I now go everywhere armed and have for many, many years. I am very lucky to be alive today and I don't take that for granted, nor should you.