Book excerpt: This book deals with positive tactics officers can employ on the street to effectively use their own firearms to defeat those of assailants. It is devoted exclusively to understanding and mastering techniques that work for survival in real life situations. Unfortunately, most of the current literature on so-called 'combat shooting' explores what works against paper targets. Few street-wise experts or truly contemporary articles have emerged on street survival, although deadly assaults on the police continue to occur year after year. This book can help make you survival sensitive. The techniques it emphasizes are designed to affect the way you prepare, plan and react, to keep you alive in real situations. They are not hypotheses, but proven procedures, based on the insights of officers who have experienced gun battles and survived and on the lessons left behind by those who have died.