Defense against the dark arts

You see the picture here? I'm seated just behind the driver and to his left you see his large jack knife. Most drivers carry some kind of a weapon in their car. And on a few occasions we've seen them pull them out. One of the first times was up north as we were leaving after a weekend in the village; we were seated in the bus and an angry passenger accosted the driver. It's nearly always about money; the situation escalated fairly quickly and our driver pulled out a screwdriver long enough to tickle the end of your esophagus. It was convincing enough because the other guy backed off. Another time we were zooming down the highway and a couple was exchanging blows on the side of the road. As our vehicle approached she flung herself into our path. The driver veered to miss her, screeched to a halt, pulled out his mukchucks and worked the woman's partner over before dumping him into the nearby pond. Next our driver had to run to the car for cover before she attacked him. Instead she threw herself in front of the next oncoming vehicle. It just was not her day, as that driver swerved to avoid her as well.
One more and I'll quit. We were trying to get a ride out of a village down south; after a long wait a car finally stopped. The driver looked us over and said we could come with him. He opened the trunk for us to stow our bags and there as big as life was a rifle. Now my parents did not raise me to be a hitchhiker, but the buses weren't running and we needed to get on with our trip. My fellow-traveller seemed nonplussed at accepting a ride from a guy with a rifle in the trunk, so we climbed aboard. We rode on in silence for a while before I asked "is your gun loaded?" "no, been out shooting rabbits" he tells us in a friendly grandfatherly voice. He went on to say that he almost never picks up hitchhikers because you don't know who's out on the road these days. But he could tell from looking at us that we were harmless and he'd be safe to take us along.