When I was 19 working construction during the summers between college I had one of the experiences I referenced. There was a bully on my crew who relentlessly fucked with me every single day. For context I was 6’4 215 training kickboxing and jujitsu 4 days a week. He was 5’2 probably 200 lbs alcoholic in his early 50s. So finally, one day, I snapped. I told him very calmly that I’d see him back at the shop and I was going to beat the brakes off of him. I very well could have and there is literally NOTHING he could have done to stop me physically. He got a real serious look on his face and said “tell ya what, you try that and I’ll show you how a pistol can make a big man small”. I knew from that second it wasn’t worth getting shot and realistically it would have been his only option to stop my gorilla ass from beating him into the dirt. It made me reflect a ton. Mostly about how a guy like me at that time could physically destroy an extremely large percentage of the general population. The thought there is next to nothing the individual could do to stop me. That is, unless they had a gun. Even a .22 would have turned me around running. That was one of the moments I realized it’s pretty reasonable to want a gun for protection. I never fought the guy and he never really eased up on fucking with me. I earned my money, finished my degree and haven’t seen him since. I learned a lot from him.