Regardless of what the law says, IMO you would have to be
insane to keep your gun hidden in a situation like that.
Two larger men, already threatening you start to manuver into position for attack? What should you do? Turn and run, only to be tapped on the shoulder and, what, spoken harshly to?
Maybe if he'd had his 'pocket law' book on him and a cell phone he could have asked them to hold on a minute while he called his lawyer to figure out if their actions met the standard for displaying his firearm in this locale.
I know! maybe they were going to start a debate on their proposition that he give them $10 and he could have just won the argument and gotten away. Maybe it was just a big game! "Give us the $10 and we'll let you go....no really." Wow, that sounds like a great deal! I mean, my life is worth more than $10, what a bargain. OK, Mr. Hulking Criminal and his Wingman Buddy, here's my 10-spot. Do I get to make my call now? Pretty please? Why did you grab my arm? Hey, where's your friend?
Check the implied contract on this one, jack: give it up
or else - -
you get to spin the
real Wheel of Fortune to figure out what the 'else' is...hope it comes up roses!
Should he have just stood there like a deer in the headlights and waited for his fate to arrive? One place you don't want to find yourself is being loaded into the ambulance in a cervical collar with IV's sticking out of your arms, squinting out through your one good remaining eye, and have the EMT's and cops find your gun still in its holster. Talk about embarassing... But hey, I'm sure your wife and kids will take solace in the knowledge that you didn't break the law while they sell the house to pay the physical therapy bills and look for new jobs during your recovery and subsequent bankruptcy!
All this like the demand for money is some kind of contractual venture you're entering into with these upstanding urban businessmen - you hold up your end and they'll hold up theirs. What if they only wanted to "inflict some pain"? Maybe that wouldn't be worth the full $10...I mean if it was like a bad bruise or something I might only pay $5 to avoid
that. Do they have a menu I can look at? I'll take the ruptured spleen and crushed ribs for $50, garcon. (psst...you know, the hardest part,
for me anyway, about a situation like this is trying to figure out how much to tip these people...I should really get one of those 'mugger tip cards' you can keep in your wallet...)
We're not even talking about
shooting these entrepreneurs (which, without a weapon in sight or some, what do cops call it? 'furtive movement'? I'd think is a real judgement call - however in my book I'd call that move morally defensible, maybe even the prudent thing to do, but likely illegal), we're not even talking about
pointing the gun at them, just displaying it! How this is even up for discussion is a major head scratcher.
Frankly, as soon as they started moving in his direction and made it clear they were there to rob him, it should have been the steady rearward-ho shuffle, barking commands with the gun out in the finger-off-the-trigger low ready faster than you can say "Tueller". If they didn't stop like cartoon characters in concrete you move to step two: SCREAM the commands and put together a finger-off-the-trigger sight picture on the big one.
Everyone knows where it goes from there. The one place it
doesn't go is with a dead good guy, and a good guy walking away unharmed is a result that keeps balance in the universe. A good guy walking away from a dead bad guy (or a couple of them) is like a major win for said universe.