TL/DR: As law abiding citizens we have inhibitions to overcome and legal considerations that criminals don't have.
I worked as a security guard for 15 years. I would say that probably half of that time I was working downtown and interacting with petty criminals all night long.
I've said this before here but almost every single time that I interacted with one the first words out of their mouth when they realized I was armed were
"What are you going to do, shoot me?"
A couple of them dared me to and I want to clarify that this was just walking up to them with the gun in my holster.
With the exception of clearing buildings I don't think I actually drew my handgun at work more than five times.
I remember two incidents that illustrate the point that I want to make.
The first one was the night that two guys attempted to rob me outside of my home. They did not realize that I was armed until I stepped out from behind my car door and they saw my gun belt. I put my hand on my gun and told them to GTF out of Dodge.
The important part of this is it the whole time this was going on my mind was racing. Am I justified? Can I convince the police that I'm justified? Am I going to go to jail for defending myself? What do I do if these guys don't back down?
I was more afraid of the repercussions if I was wrong then I was of getting robbed except if I had been robbed they would have taken the gun and I would have got fired for that too.
The second incident I was at a substation late one night doing a check. The substation and its parking lot were private property and they were posted "No Trespassing".
As I was getting in my car to leave a tweaker wearing war paint and a bird mask came through the parking lot on his bicycle.
At the far end of the parking lot was a 20 ft drop. So he wasn't passing through. My car was lit from the street lights and he wasn't 3 ft away from it he could not possibly have not known I was there.
I got out of the car and shined my flashlight at him. I want to clarify that it was a handheld flashlight not a WML.
He went absolutely ballistic. He threw down the bike he started screaming at me and he pulled up his shirt and he reached into his waistband and started screaming something about "Do you want to see mine? Do you want to see mine?"
Any reasonable person would have thought he was reaching for a weapon. I had my hand on my gun. I think I actually drew it. And the whole time I'm thinking that if he doesn't come out of that waistband with a gun in his hand I'm screwed. If he does come out of his waistband with a gun in his hand and I shoot him I'm still screwed.
So the main point that I'm trying to make Is both of those times I was constrained by legal considerations that the other guy didn't have.
If I shoot a bad guy in self-defense even if I am 100% justified, life as I know it is over. If the bad guy shoots me, it's just another in a long list of charges If he's even caught.
That is something that I believe most of us are going to have to overcome before we ever have to defend ourselves with a firearm.
Last story, I caught a guy trespassing on utilities private property one morning.
I'm not going to go through the whole story but he threatened to kill me with an ax. While he was looking through his shopping cart to find his ax I got on the radio and I called for police assistance and backup.
I also pulled out my OC spray with my other hand and when he turned around from his shopping cart with his ax I was standing there shaking up my OC spray and telling him to bring it.
He dropped the ax like it was on fire. it was the best result I've ever gotten drawing a "weapon" at work.
Criminals, with some justification, don't believe that you'll shoot them.
They absolutely believe that you'll spray them.