Any training that is undertaken to assist in the protection of yourself or others should be seen from a martial arts stand point. Training to carry and USE a hand gun should be seen as seriously as any other art form. Very good point Blindside. As to the "new agey" aikido-ka in the world... those are the folks pursuing the personal improvement side of the art more ardently than the personal protection side. Nothing wrong with that but it's just not for me.Training to use a gun in a combat/self-defense situation is a martial art. That said, I'm pretty certain it goes against many of the tenants of the more new agey aikidoers out there.
When training handgun disarms once I was asked "Well, what if they really just want to kill you instead of taking your wallet. What do you do" The only answer I could come up with was "Die". If I have a firearm and my purpose is to simply kill you I'm going to use the range afforded me by that weapon to my advantage. I'm going to raise my weapon and fire before you ever realize that I'm there. The VAST majority of the time, however, the weapon is used as intimidation with the idea of actually firing a round being the last resort. If someone is close enough to you to use the weapon for intimidation then they should be close enough to you for quality disarms (that you've practiced until you can do them in you sleep) to work. The idea of the old west shoot out is, as Jarrod pointed out, far fetched. You will have to use your own judgment of the individual holding you at gunpoint to know whether the weapon is being use for intimidation or will be employed to kill. The best bet is to hand over the wallet and be prepared to use active defense if needed.
