Alpha, I would have done the same thing... . except... I don't think my old worn out 305 would have handled the abuse.
On the flip side... If they would have been following me, with my daughter in the car, my . 45 would have been very handy (CCW), as well as a call to 911 with a description of what was going on.
Generally, when they find out there is a child being endangered as well, things get moving a bit quicker.
This does kind of remind me of a joke though...
In the middle of the night a gentleman wakes up and hears someone digging through his shed. Not long before he had $5000 worth of stuff stolen out of that same shed. This time he saw 3 of them out there. He called 911. The Dispatcher told him to hold tight, the response time would be about 15 min! Why he asked? Well there are other crimes going on right now. So he hung up with the dispatcher and waited 2 min and called back. Ironically he got the same dispatcher. Hey it's me again he said. Don't worry about sending the cops quickly, I shot all 3 of them. Take your time. He then hung up. Within 2 min there were 4 squads tearing into his neighborhood!
Of course they caught the theifs. When the sheriff came to question him he asked why he said he shot them. Well I just wanted to see if it REALLY was a 15 min response time.
JP