One of the best-kept secrets in America is how often and how effectively ordinary citizens defend themselves with firearms against criminal attack or criminal threat. Criminology professor Gary Kleck of Florida State University estimates that each year about 2.5 million ordinary people in the United States use firearms in confrontations with criminals. In the most cases, a shot is not fired and the incident is fnot reported to police. Along with the bias of the mainstream media against portraying guns in a positive light, this results in these incidents occurring below the public's radar. The second edition of this comprehensive look at self-defense with firearms lifts the veil by recounting some of these incidents, from warding off a burglar in the home to coming to the aid of a police officer in jeopardy. Each incident is put into context with other self-defense actions and features descriptions of ordinary citizens to determine why they did what they did. The stories are rounded out by suggestions, often from the participants themselves, about what they might have done differently.

The book has been updated with several newer and more timely stories.