Having been in a few gunfights, even one where I had to draw a pistol quickly, if you pull the gun you had better be ready to kill. The Hollywood wounding or scaring someone with a warning shot is not practical. If you are threatened enough to pull it, doing anything other than killing is likely to make the situation worse. You also HAVE TO KNOW where that bullet is going. You have to be aware of what is behind and around your target. You are risking someone else's life if you do anything other than engage the threat. If you do not intend to destroy something, do not pull the gun out, find some other way of mitigating threat, even if that is just getting your own self out of the danger. Guns escalate the situation, rarely do they reduce the threat without killing someone. Make sure it is the person who is the threat and not you or an innocent.