I’ve preached about avoiding the use of deadly force for decades - approach tactics for sworn personnel, avoidance and escape for the nonsworn. If you’ve done everything right, considered your approach to every situation and anticipated trouble (to paraphrase from SURVIVAL SHOOTING TECHNIQUES) — and had some luck, you can stay away from killing situations.
Sometimes. 

When all that fails, the only thing left is the tactics of engagement. A critical aspect of that is hits on target. 
We’ll discuss that more, moving forward, but for now the issue of carrying firearms arises. 

Few things disturb me more than reading fiction, seeing a motion picture or television production where the protagonist first has to run into trouble, often being injured, before going back to the office or home or the car (please, not the car) to retrieve the firearm he should’ve been carrying in the first place. 

It wrecks the drama if, at the first sign of trouble, the protagonist moves to cover, draws to guard - or covers his own retreat until reinforcements arrive. 

We can’t have that.

The problem is that people believe the nonsense they see from play actors, performing the actions of writers who don’t know a stock screw from a recoil spring. 

That is a problem. 

So, they leave the gun at home. It stays in the car because it’s uncomfortable and, besides, nothing’s happened yet.

And it won’t. Until it does. 

In your case, and mine, there’s no director to call “cut!” There are no reshoots if we flub our lines. We can’t correct it in post-production. 

All that remains is the scent of lilies, sad organ music, long faces and people trying to fit into the good clothes they’ve not worn since the last funeral. 

I know it’s inconvenient. It can be uncomfortable. You could be in a position where carry of the firearm can lead to a loss of livelihood (which is a lot more problematic than it may sound to some). It could be illegal where you reside. 
I’d tell you to move, but real life has a vote.

Too often, people will carry the smallest, the lightest, the most difficult-to-shoot gun they can find … or the cheapest. Ammo being expensive – consider range time and cost, if one’s available – a good many have little clue what it will be like when the gun is actually fired. 

The bottom line is that not everyone can carry a gun. Not everyone will. Too few of those who do carry guns actually train even in the “hard skills,” square range stuff that can actually be accomplished - unlike scenario training, video simulators and the like. 

Obviously, the more of those non-range “think-with-a-gun” activities you could get, the better. If you carry a gun, you’d best be oriented to not missing. A miss on the range is a learning opportunity. On the street, it’s a tragedy with ramifications worse than those the legal system can throw at you. 

I’ve taken to tightening up the hard skills aspect for now; it’s what I can do. 

The way I’m doing that is to work on precision. I’m less worried about speed -- for now.

– Rich Grassi