NEVER pull a weapon or fire a shot unless you are going to shoot to kill.
NEVER, because that person if armed is very likely to shoot you. When you pull that weapon, immediately shoot to kill.
There is one exception and I used it once. When the bad guy was running and I shot straight into the ground to scare him bad enough that he would make a mistake. It is a long story, documented in our local paper, but the bottom line is that it worked.
It scared the guy so bad that he left all manner of identifying objects and we had him within an hour.
Yeh You are right about shooting a gun w/ intent to kill.
I have a handgun but I never did any formal training with it. Education is key when dealing w/ a deadly weapon. Thanks for the education that I need more of it.
Justified self-defense only permits one to shoot in order to stop the attack. It's simply a coincidence of human physiology that the same tactic that will stop an attack quickly is also extremely deadly.
When the attack stops, you must stop shooting, whether the attacker is dead or alive. You are only shooting to STOP, not shooting to KILL.