I’m in my truck, sitting at a stop light. First in line, with one car behind me.

I see a man cross the street, heading in my general direction. I keep an eye on him.

He moves down the street, ultimately crossing the street behind the car behind me. He continues down the road without incident. I had no reason to believe anything would happen, but better to keep your eyes peeled than risk being caught off guard.

But as he moved, I pulled plans out of my mental file cabinet for dealing with the situation should X happen. It is about being prepared and a little head in my OODA loop in case something does happen, but it’s more about planning and practicing and ensuring there’s something in the file cabinet, perhaps refining what’s in there, perhaps ensuring what’s in there is still relevent, etc..

If he started to directly approach my car, especially in a quick or aggressive manner, right foot gets applied to gas pedal, steering wheel turns to the right so I can enter the flow of traffic (or at least not t-bone a car that might be in the intersection). Basically, get out of there.

But he passed my car and started on a trajectory that looked like it might approach the car behind me.

What then?

If he started something with the driver of the car behind me, what should I do?

I know many good-minded citizens would want to stop the altercation. You see someone getting the stuffing beat out of them and you want to step in. You see someone getting carjacked, you want to do something about it.

And some might think, “I have a gun… and could use it”. True, you could, and here in Texas you could be legally justified to use deadly force in defense of a third party. Maybe. It’ll all depend upon the particular circumstances.

But just because you legally can, does that mean you should?

Some might be motivated by not wanting to be haunted by “after the fact” thoughts of “if I had only done something”.

But I say, you have to figure that out beforehand and come to terms with whatever your decision is. You have to know what you’ll do, where your lines are drawn, and to be sure you can justify and live with your decision.

I’ll admit, I can’t say with 100% certainty what I would do because it will depend upon the specific circumstance. But in general, I may not get involved. I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know these people, nor what the problem is. The person that looks like the “bad guy” might in fact be the “good guy”, which I just can’t know unless I know the whole story, and that’s something I won’t have nor receive in time. I might be inserting myself somewhere I shouldn’t, and could be causing even bigger problems for myself. Is that worth it? For what it could bring to myself? to my family? the court case, the lawyers, the public muckraking?

Maybe.

For me the question is: is it worth dying over?

Is it worth leaving my wife without a husband? my children without a father?

Maybe.

In general, probably not. If I take the specific situation that could have unfolded behind me, say a carjacking, I probably would have stayed as long as I could to get relevant information like a description (already mentally recording that as I watched the guy walk), perhaps a car description, and dial 911 and let APD sort it out. My feet would have also stayed ready to hit the gas pedal, because if it looked to put me in danger, I would want to get out of it as quickly as possible. If things didn’t get that ugly, I might stay around to help the victim. But it really all depends upon the specifics.

The bottom line: I want to go home. This is a guiding principle for me. Yes it’s selfish of me, but I think Wife and Kiddos appreciate it.

You have to know where your line is, and you need to know it BEFORE the flag flies. Use every day situations and ask yourself “what if?” to help you figure out a playbook, and also find your limits.