My Smith & Wesson 38 Special titanium alloy J frame; the gun I pulled on an attempted carjacker years ago. My first handgun was a Glock 19, I sold that and got a Glock 27. Didn’t like that so sold it and got this when I was promoted to manager. I didn’t want to look like all the other guys working the range or gun counter and carry a gun in an outside the waistband holster, so I carried this on my ankle. More professional!
After buying the gun, getting a night sight, a Galco ankle holster and a trigger job to lighten it up, I was in over $1000 on this baby. But it was the new TITANIUM lightweight hot gun. So light I’d forget I even had it on! I loved it. Because it was so light it was painful even for me to shoot, and brought my x-wife to tears when she shot it.
I was driving home from work and at a red light, crazy homeless looking dude was running up to a car in front of me & pulling so hard on the door handle I thought he’d rip it off. Then ran to another car, the one directly in front of me and did the same thing. Cars were all so close together that no one could go anywhere, they had jammed themselves in. I had as well. I then saw the giant saw blade/edged weapon in his other hand. He was threatening the woman in front of me with it & looked like he was yelling at her to get out of her car. All she could do was scream. All anyone else could do was honk their car horns. It didn’t phase him.
I had rep’ed drawing my gun from the ankle holster a ton, and many of them had been from a seated position. So I put my car in park and quickly pulled it out. I opened my truck door and yelled at him to get away from her car. I had the confidence to do this because I was armed and trained. The thought of shooting him right there crossed my mind, but with so much traffic behind him, I was worried about my backstop & who the bullets might hit if I missed.
He turned his attention to me and started coming towards me, with the weapon high in the air. Right then all I could think of was FUCK, I ONLY have 5 bullets in this gun, and they are only 38, so I backed into my truck & closed the door and locked it just before he got up to it.
He pulled the handle.
I felt like I had a better angle on him now, but because I was seated in my truck, I couldn’t bring the gun up into a normal shooting position, it would be right in front of my face and sideways. It also would be going through my glass window. So then the thought of glass shards flying everywhere and into my eyes was a concern, and also the noise that it would cause that could also give me more hearing loss.
Then I thought how I wish I still had my Glock 19. And instead of 5 rounds to bet my life on, I would have had 16.
I left out one part of the upgrade I had done to this gun. I also put a set of LaserGrips on it. There was a small button on the handle. When I gripped the gun to shoot, it automatically turned on. It was pointed right at his chest, and I was making the decision to pull the trigger. But before I could, he saw the red laser coming out of the gun, his eyes got HUGE full of white now, and he looked down at his chest and saw the red dot on it. He instantly stopped, turn around and ran off.
He ran to the corner gas station, threw the blade into a trash can and started walking away. I called 911, they were already on the way, but was able to direct them through the dispatcher to the guy and later the trash can to recover the weapon (which looked like the saw blade from an entrenching tool) I saw him cuffed, so drove away. I bought a Glock shortly after.
I learned a few tactical lessons, but my biggest takeaway was -when it comes down to my life, or the life of another, 5 bullets didn’t give me the confidence I thought it would when facing a lethal threat.
Author – Stephen Grosch