the kids were young. id say non of the three could have been older than 17/18. in all honesty if i had a weapon, i wouldnt have been able to get it until i walked away anyway. However, as i was walking away i would have been reaching for the gun instead of my phone and when they started running, i would have surely chased them down. It's probably for the best I didnt. I would have gotten myself into trouble.
a lot of robberies tend to be intimidation. I think once these kids saw i wasnt having it, they knew it would be more work than just scaring me into giving them what they wanted. And decided that it wasnt worth it and that they could get caught or hurt. Had the kids been older, me walking away might have pissed them off to the point they would shoot me.
there are always what if's after something like that. The situation worked out in my favor. The biggest thing that pissed me off is the cops took 20 minutes to show up, only to ask me all the things i told the operator on the phone,( including full descriptions of all 3 and the directions they ran in.) then they decided to go look for them. in 20 minutes time there was no chance of those kids being caught. They probably ran right home and continued their day like nothing happened. Thats the sort of thing that makes me feel the need to defend myself. Apparently, the police have better things to do than take care of that for me.
Even to be able to injure the kid with the gun enough to hold him until the police came would be doing a service.