My wife and I were at Walmart today when there was either a gunshot or a really loud damn firework report inside the store. From the sound of it, it was about 2 or 3 rows over from where we were, which happened to be near the door to the three-season lawn & garden area. People gasped and shrieked, and for a couple seconds, froze, looking in the direction of the noise for some further sign of a situation, but that sign didn't come. After that first few seconds, people began running or walking quickly away from the area. I learned something about myself in that moment.
Since I began carrying, I've never been involved in any kind of immediate threat situation, so I've never known for sure how I'd react. I took the training and know by the textbook how to assess a threat level, but I've never had to actually employ that knowledge in response to a real threat. Immediately upon rebounding from being startled by the noise, I realized that it may very well be that I was the only person in the immediate vicinity with the ability to respond if this turned out to be a violent situation. That was my very first thought after "holy sh*t what was that", and I am a bit surprised to say that fleeing or exiting never entered my mind. I motioned for my wife to head away from the area (I'm proud of her because as we exchanged glances I knew that she knew what I intended to do, and she never protested), I checked to make sure my firearm was unencumbered in my pocket holster, and carefully moved toward the direction from which the noise had come.
As I moved forward I was reassured by the fact that immediately following the report, there was no screaming or yelling, no sound of struggle or people fleeing the immediate scene. I became relatively sure that whether a gun or a firework, no one had been harmed. So I don't want anyone to think I'm tooting my horn for walking into live gunfire surrounded by gangstas. I'm just sharing because it crossed my mind as I was carefully working my way toward the direction of the noise, that I was walking toward potential danger and not away from it. That's something a person can't really know about themselves until they encounter the circumstances.
So now I know.
Never did find out what it was. Some employees came running over after, asking what the noise was, and nobody seemed to know. I smelled burnt gunpowder, and it didn't smell like a firework. No paper residue on the floor that I could see. So who knows. My gut tells me that some punk entered in through the lawn and garden area, and either blasted a round or a firework, and left the way he came in.
