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GUN FOR YOU?
That's right. You must load and unload it every day before leaving for work or even just the corner market. No exceptions. A hassle, yes, but cheap insurance against a dead child. If you're unloading a semi-automatic handgun— remember, it's the magazine plus one. Forgetting that plus one, the bullet still in the chamber, is the reason many children are dead.
Who is an expert
instructor? Ask yourself, "Will I get the best training from someone
who has had hands-on experience using firearms under deadly conditions
or from someone who has read about it?" To teach students who want
to be prepared to use a firearm for
 After becoming a competent firearms handler and marksman comes point-of-aim shooting (shooting to save your life). It was first introduced by the Marine Corps in the mid-sixties; we called it quick-kill. Later, some SWAT trainers changed the term to instinct shooting. Most experienced trainers now refer to this skill as point-of-aim or point shooting. It's not sport shooting or basic marksmanship. It's learning the skill necessary to shoot at a human being who is threatening your life at close range. At any close-in distance you will not have time to use your sights or any other basic marksmanship training. Trying to use the sights of  your
gun under life-or-death conditions at close distances is unnatural,
nearly impossible, and dangerous.
This is a brief summary of point-of-aim shooting, which relies on the human body's natural ability to point instantly with accuracy. (What follows is not a substitute for hands-on instruction.) Successful point-of-aim shooting is an intense mind-and-body concentration on one small point in the middle of your target (police officers call that spot the 10-ring). With one or both hands (I prefer both), thrust your weapon toward the target. Fix your eyes, your mind, every muscle—total concentration on the 10-ring. Peripherally, your eyes see your thrust-out gun barrel. Because optically, physically, and mentally you are concentrated on the same spot, you will automatically adjust the gun barrel for that spot.
Surviving a critical-incident shooting doesn't depend on who has the most bullets, the biggest gun, the longest barrel, or even on who is the best marksman. It depends on superior concentration for a few split seconds. No way around this: intense concentration separates the winners and losers in a close-in deadly exchange of gunfire. The slightest distraction returns every advantage to the bad guy. Big difference in marksmanship training and point-of-aim training. Be sure your instructor has point-of-aim experience. With rare exception, point-of-aim experience begins with law enforcement and/or military backgrounds.
You will not
be a safe distance away. You'll be close, real close, because it
will likely be inside your home. Count on approximately five feet,
but maybe only inches. The fight will be one-on-one—possibly
to the death for one or both of you. To stop him, you'll probably
have to shoot him more than once because he'll be close enough to
use his weapon on you, even while you're shooting him. Don't expect
him to turn and run after one shot, whether you hit him or not.
Don't expect a clean, one-hit stop. Expect screaming. Expect Count on this: You can be completely familiar with guns and still find criminal assault a complete shock. Violent attacks are never clean and seldom go down or end the way you hope or expect. They're unforgettable. They will change your life forever. Include in your survival plan exactly what you will say as well as what you will order him to do or not do. Make it brief. For twenty years, I yelled the same words every time: "Freeze or you're a dead man!"
When do you shout orders, versus when do you use a gun? At no time is concentration more critical than when making a shoot/no-shoot decision. Make your "I'll squeeze the trigger when . . . " decision ahead of time.
Concentrate on the gun barrel. Keep it away from you and on him. The gun barrel! Concentrate. Concentrate!" The police trainers' words instantly filled my mind. We were both screaming. He was yanking at my gun and I was holding on for dear life. Then he started pleading, You're choking me." I eased up on my headlock. Big mistake. He pulled at my gun with renewed power. I let go of his neck and grabbed my gun with both hands. Now there were four hands on the gun. He pushed it toward me—hard. I pushed back. Get the barrel on him." I got the barrel on him for just a second and pulled the trigger. From the instant I got out of my car to the moment I shot him, the whole incident took fifteen to twenty seconds. It goes down fast. Blood was pouring from his shoulder. He went dead silent for three or four seconds, then he began a high-pitched screaming that sounded just like a wounded rabbit. I got scared about internal bleeding and that he might die on me. So I cuffed him (so he couldn't struggle against me) and carried him over my shoulder back to my car. I strapped him into the front seat, called the dispatcher to have officers meet me at the hospital, and took off, driving with one hand while pressing on his wound with the other. He never stopped screaming. We were both blood soaked. He lived. If you drop the gun or it is wrestled away from you or it is not close enough to reach in an instant—forget the gun. Focus only on escape. Be disciplined and in control enough to shift to escape. Meet all five criteria or unload. And, keep meeting all five criteria. Law enforcement officers, our nation's experts at using firearms at critical distances under deadly conditions, have annual refresher training, and in some cities, semiannually. SWAT teams generally have firearms training weekly to twice a month at the very least. I was the firearms trainor for the San Diego police SWAT team. A tragic and life-threatening difference between armed citizens and cops: by huge percentages, armed citizens use a gun in their defense far more than cops. Yet, cops, who cannot be there when violence strikes, are the ones with specialized training for a life-or-death armed confrontation. Worse, unlike cops, citizens do not get the benefit of critiquing a shooting and learning what was right and wrong about their handling of the confrontation—except in a newspaper. The bottom-line problem: Cops are the only ones who have a method to learn from right and wrong actions. The solution: Use these five criteria, not only in your goal of being more than just armed, but as your method of critique of another's armed confrontation. Adopt this decision for your family: Our objective is to escape to survive. This gun is simply insurance that no one blocks our escape. If our family faces violence like a home intrusion, the cleaner and less entangled our escape is, the happier we'll be when we look back on it. Mind-setting against crime is the heart of crime survival. Having a gun in your hands and pointing it at an intruder doesn't change that fact. With or without a gun, your mind-set will make the difference.
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Loaded
guns in private homes are virtually always kept solely for personal
or family protection. If you make this choice, you are personally
responsible for everything having to do with that weapon, twenty-four
hours a day. That includes making certain the gun is unloaded while
you're not at home. The objective is not to make a loaded gun readily
available for accidents or criminal use. 
Get
expert firearms instruction and experience from a professional.
Become a good marksman, not just a gun owner. You must gain confidence
and competence with your firearm before learning how to use it to
save your life. For example, too many new gun owners cannot clear
jams in semiautomatic handguns in daylight, let alone in complete
darkness and under greater stress than they've ever before experienced.
A box or two of ammunition and a couple of trips to the shooting
range or back country is not enough. No one has or maintains shooting
skills without practice. 
self-preservation,
the instructor needs experience beyond the firing range. In combination;
expert instruction, a sound understanding of firearms, and good
marksmanship are critical steps in using guns safely and effectively
to save your life. 
Marksmanship
requires a relaxed concentration involving
breathing, stance, relaxation of your eyes and muscles, and sight
alignment with your target. Point-of-aim is intense
concentration on just the 10-ring. 
Be
honest with yourself: Are you ready to kill another person? I didn't
say "ready to threaten" an intruder. I said, "Are you ready to kill
someone you believe is threatening your life?" It will go something
like this: 
everything
to be blood-soaked, including you, your own blood and likely his,
too. Even if he is badly wounded, expect him to get to you or perhaps
a family member, maybe with his weapon still in his hands. 
You
will be face-to-face with someone ready to kill you. He has probably
killed before—criminal recidivism statistics bear that out.
Using hesitant, uncertain words—"l don't want to shoot you";
"Don't make me shoot you"; "Please leave and no one will get hurt"—will
likely lead to your gun being yanked away and used against you.
Be forceful and clear—leave no doubt in his mind what he must
do to avoid deadly consequences. 
Don't
make a gun your sole means of escape, and especially don't make
it the sole means of protection for your family. Establish the family
escape-and-survive plan, and use the methods I outlined to teach
your children how to escape crime. Then, if an intruder strikes
when you're home and if your gun is close by, fine. But, first concentrate
on escape with your family. Use your gun to ensure your escape.
Never choose to stand your ground and shoot it out instead of escaping.
Under ideal conditions, the best marksmen in the world have a fifty-fifty
chance to shoot the other guy first in gun battles when the shooters
are separated by a few feet. Remember that trained police officers
hit suspects only once out of every four shots at three to nine
feet. 
When
I was a new police officer working alone, one night about eleven-thirty,
I saw two men walking and got a feeling about them. I decided to
shake 'em down. They both took off. I chased after one, gun in hand.
He ducked into an alley. As I turned the corner, he jumped me. We
went down, rolling on the sidewalk. He had both hands on my gun.
I had one arm around his neck, my other on my gun. I was one all-alone-and-scared
cop, fearing my gun would be used against me.