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There is nothing wrong with caution and situational awareness... but a balance needs to be struck between non-involvement or a blind eye, vigilante-ism and calling 911 for any little concern. Every situation is different, every person's threat perception is different, as is their ability to respond.
Exactly. My wifey has had three situations at the house where she called 911. In all three cases she called me, described what was happening and asked what to do. In two of those cases, I told her to turn around, drive to a safe spot and call 911. In these two cases *** I *** would not have called 911 since if anything bad would have happened I could deal with the situation. She would be far less able to safely handle things.
The third incident I would have called 911.
I have been home and had three incidents which I handled. If she had been home at least two of these incidents would have required a 911 call. The third one was borderline. It could be argued that in these two incidents *** I *** should have called 911 since one involved trespasser shooting on our land. The other situation was also with trespassers, and based on their behavior, I think they were armed as well. In any case, I handled it which is not something most people should do.
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What should NOT happen is to get killed while bringing skittles to your brother!
Agreed. That one stinks.
Situation Awareness.
In one case where the wifey called 911 she was driving to the house. Our road is public and then private. After about 600 feet or so on the private part of the road, you can no longer turn around easily or quickly. The road bed is higher than grade and there is no way to go off road. At this point you are in a choke point that is easily blocked. The wifey came home one day and there was a car with two people in it sitting near the choke point. To get to the house she would have to drive past the two people, stop her car, get out and open the gate which makes her vulnerable. When she saw the people at the choke point she wisely did not go past them but turned around while she could, called me to ask for advise and called 911.
I bring these details up because when we first bought the land you could not drive up the road because it had been overgrown with trees. One day I was out a couple of hundred feet past the choke point clearing some land and more of the road. I had been working all day so I was hot, dirty, sweaty, stunk worse than a skunk and I am sure looked more than rough.
We and a neighbor had hired a septic engineer who was a woman. She paid a visit on this particular day to look at the neighbors land. She drove in, ignored me, drove past me and got out of her car. I had never met her but I knew who she was but she sure did not know me. What she did was very stupid. She ignored the dirty, smelly, crazy looking dude at the edge of the road. All I had to do was start the truck, move forward a few feet and she was not going anywhere. She really should have stopped her vehicle next to me, rolled down the window a bit and had a chat to check me out. She did not.
Of course I went over to talk to her which scared her witless.

Well Duh Lady. We had a pleasant chat about why she was there and I helped her find the field she was looking to study. But she really should have done things safer.
About the same time this happened, two older women living in house on the public road started to walk on our private road that I worked to open up. I was working in the same spot as described before and these two women walk right past me as I worked on the chainsaw on the tailgate of the truck. They walk right by me and did not even acknowledge my existence as they walk up my road.

This did not set me in the right frame of mind. I am a friend guy but don't ignore me and walk up on my land.
When they returned from their trespass walk I waited until the walked past me to see if they would ever say hey. They did not. So I did. Except I was not so friendly.
I bring this up because these two women were NOT thinking. At All. To be friendly they SHOULD have talked to me. In doing so they would have been able to figure out if I was a threat or not. They would also have learned that I OWNED the land they were walking on and we might have had a more pleasant conversation later on. As it was, what they did was rude and very risky. A bad man could have easily have blitzed both of them before they could have reacted. I had all sorts of dangerous tools within easy reach of tail gate. They were NOT thinking and had zero situational awareness.
Later,
Dan