Handguns
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First thing's first. You have to determine which eye is your dominant eye. One easy way to do this is with both eyes open, make a ring with one hand, or a tube, and circle any object you see in your room that's 5 feet away or more. Now, without moving that ring, close one eye at a time to see with which eye does the object stay within the ring and with which eye does it appear somewhere else. Obviously, the eye with which the object stays within the ring is your dominant eye.

Now don't be surprised if your dominant eye is not on the same side as your strong or writing hand. There is a fairly significant percentage of the population that falls in this category. Unfortunately, your dominant eye is more important when it comes to shooting than your dominant hand. Some people simply "crossover" meaning they are left-hand dominant, but right eye dominant (or vice versa), so they shoot left-handed and they simply lean their heads over so their right eyes are lining up the sights.

There is a celebrity example for this, and he is Bruce Willis. That's why sometimes he looks a little awkward while holding a weapon in movies, particularly rifles. At first I thought he was doing something wrong, but upon closer examination, he has good grip and posture, but I finally noticed what it was that looked weird, and that was the fact that he cocks his head over to look down the sights with his right eye. The fact that he is actually actively trying to get a proper sight picture shows that he probably has some real experience with firearms, or at least received some sort of training on them.

The proper thing to do if this applies to you is to actually learn how to shoot from the side of your dominant eye. Yes, I know it will feel awkward at first, but if you do it enough, it'll become natural. This is what they do in some branches of the military and they do eventually get accustomed to it. While crossing over is probably the most popular way people get around this problem, it is not the most effective and fastest way to acquire and engage a target at moment's notice. Not only that, but learning to shoot with your weak hand is important, even for those who do not have this problem, everyone should learn how to effectively employ their weapon with EITHER hand.

Now that we've determined your strong eye, for the purposes of this guide, the term "strong side" will refer to the side of your strong eye and subsequent firing side. If you really don't want to try to learn shooting with your weak side and would rather just do the crossover with your head, then "strong side" would simply refer to your strong side. I don't personally recommend it, but I've seen some people pull it off, so it's your prerogative.

1. With your strong hand, grip the weapon by the pistol grip so the webbing in between your thumb and index finger are as high up as the weapon allows it to be on the grip. Grip the pistol grip firmly with your thumb and your third, fourth, and pinky, keeping your index finger straight over the trigger well. Your third finger should be right up against the trigger guard.
   

   Right hand grip is shown, perform with whichever is your strong side hand. Index, or trigger, finger is extended and over the trigger guard because you should always keep your finger OFF the trigger until you're ready to fire.

2. With your weak side hand, known as your support hand, use the meaty part of your palm to cover the exposed grip (should be rotated forward slightly since the exposed section is at an angle) and then wrap the fingers around the grip so the index finger should be up against the bottom of the trigger guard and the weak hand thumb should be along the strong hand thumb. The thumbs should be parallel. Do not tuck one thumb under the other, this creates a pocket under your palm and will reduce the amount of contact surface you have with the grip.

This is probably the most popular of the wrong grip techniques. I like to call it the "Jack Bauer" or otherwise known as the "cup and saucer" technique. The reason why it is so popular, besides it being used in movies for well over a decade, is because at one time it was a practiced two-handed handgun grip used by law enforcement and other professionals. But along with the antiquated wrist support technique:

There is another grip that isn't really "wrong," but it is not quite up-to-date on safety. And surprisingly my previous example for crossover , Bruce Willis, uses this grip. It is the grip style that was popular among law enforcement and other professionals right after the cup and saucer and right before the current. That's where your support hand's index finger goes over the trigger guard. Once again, here's John McClane, look at his grip, where his weak hand index finger is up and wrapped around the front of the trigger guard:

In terms of stability and control it is actually not a bad grip. It is probably as good as the current recommended grip style in those terms. But in terms of safety, it is not up to par. Experts say that the weak hand finger over the trigger guard is just another object that can "accidentally" meet with the trigger if you make a mistake. So it's better to keep it under the trigger guard.

This is just stupid, I don't think I even need to waste any of my time explaining all that is wrong with this:

1. Stand with your shoulders squared off with the target. Your feet should be shoulder width apart, toes pointed toward your target with your strong side foot slightly back, and the knees slightly bent. This gives you both sideways and forward and backward stability. You should be standing in a way that if someone would push you in any direction, you shouldn't lose your balance.
   The photo is the back view of the posture. The shoulders are squared off with the target, the strong side foot is back a little, and the knees are slightly bent. The illustration to the right of it shows a top view of just how the shoulders, feet, and weapon are oriented in relation to the target.
2. Now lean slightly FORWARD at the waist. Most beginners would lean backward, DO NOT lean backward, I know your body wants to do that to counter-balance the weight of the firearm extended in front of you, but you have to be aggressive and lean INTO the fight, not away from it. This will help with recoil control, follow-up shots, and the overall stability of the shot. If you're worried about balance, don't worry, because your knees are slightly bent, your butt should balance out the weight of the extended handgun, lol.
3. Push straight out with your hands utilizing the proper grip as described above. Push slightly forward with your strong hand, and pull slightly back toward you with your weak hand. This should lock the weapon in a very stable position. Bring the weapon up to your eye level, don't tilt your head to the weapon, keep your head straight up.

There are variations on the posture including one called the Weaver Stance. This stance is mainly used when you're firing from behind cover like the corner of a wall of something where you want to try to limit your exposure but at the same time maintain a two-handed handgun firing grip. In this stance, your shoulders are not squared off with your target. Instead, your shoulders are at an angle where your strong side shoulder is further back, kind of like how the strong side foot is positioned back in the normal stance. The feet stay the same, but the entire body is now angled like that. Without a weapon, this stance is called the "blade" stance since you're effectively narrowing your frontal profile.

Most handguns are point of aim, point of impact weapons. Meaning you aim on top of what you want to hit. There are SOME exceptions to this, but I think it is safe to say that 99% of handguns out there are of this type. Here is how this works:

Most handgun sights compose of a rear sight and a front sight post. The rear sight is often a wide flat surface with a "U" notch cut out of it in the center. The rear sight would have a contrasting color dot on each side of the notch. The front sight post is usually a post with another contrasting colored dot in the center. Vertically, you line up the three dots so they are at the same elevation as each other, and horizontally, you place the front sight post in the notch with equal amount of space on either side of the front sight post.

Your shots, in theory, should hit right behind that center dot. So a correct sight picture would be that alignment with your target right behind it. A sight picture such as the one to the left would result in hits to center mass, or the chest.

And as I have said before, you bring the firearm up to your line of sight, keeping your head straight. Don't tilt your head down or bring it down to the sights.

With time, as you get used to the grip and get used to the posture, you wouldn't even need to use the sights at close range. You can simply point and shoot and the shots will generally go where you want them to go. This is how you want it for any kind of defensive shooting situation. Because when you are using your weapon for self defense, often time the situation would not allow you the time to actually aim using the sights. You simply draw and shoot. But you definitely need to practice getting the correct sight picture, with enough practice you can actually have well-aimed shot placement in very little time.

Breath control is not too important when you're caught in an emergency situation where you're forced to use your weapon in self defense. But if you have adjustable sights, or you are firing a new weapon for the first time, you need to practice proper breath control to properly sight in your weapon or check the weapon's sights. Most weapons are shipped from the factory set up to shoot point of aim. But there are those rare times that you get a firearm, and when you fire it, you consistently shoot off to the left, right, low, high, etc. Often time if this is significant enough, and consistent enough so you know it's not simply user error, you can get your weapon serviced by the manufacturer to get the sight corrected. Some sights are easily adjustable, in those cases, you simply adjust it yourself.

When you breath, you have natural pauses at the peak of your inhale and your exhale.

Also, breathe slow and easy, don't rush to the pauses, don't try to force it, that would cause your heart rate to go up and make your shot less stable.

The first thing to know about trigger control, is how to properly press the trigger. First of all, you don't pull a trigger. Pulling on it will tighten up the muscles in your wrist and cause your aim to be thrown off. You either squeeze the trigger or press the trigger. Both ways, you focus only on the muscles used to manipulate the trigger finger and nothing else, and you do so in a steady and constant pressure. Most beginners jerk the trigger anticipating the recoil of the shot. Don't do this, the shot SHOULD be a surprise to you, you shouldn't "know" when it goes off. You should be squeezing, squeezing, squeezing, and bam, it goes off. This way, you don't anticipate the shot and you wouldn't throw it off completely.

Next, there is the issue of where on your finger should contact the trigger. There are two popular ways of this, and while some people say one way is better than the other, I say they both have their uses.

The first is the most popular among competition shooters, snipers, and other professionals. This is where you press the trigger with only the tip of your finger, the meaty part of the finger past the last knuckle.

The second is popular among infantry soldiers, law enforcement street patrol officers, and others. You might think, "well, if snipers use the first one, and regular infantry uses this one, then obviously the first one is the correct one." I do not believe that is correct. I believe this method is taught to the majority of people first learning how to shoot because it's the simplest to get used to since the motion seems the most natural while you're pressing the trigger with the meaty part of the finger between the 2nd and 3rd knuckle. It is the easiest to learn and get used to, but it is also useful for some applications OVER the first method.

I used a revolver for a reason in the example pic for this method. And that's because that's where I think this is the MORE effective means of pressing the trigger. If you have to press a double-action only trigger, you'll be exerting a lot more force than on a single-action trigger. This is particularly true in these smaller, hammerless, double-action-only, revolvers. I've found that the first method of using only the tip of your finger works best in precision shooting with medium to light triggers. Meaning, you should try to get used to using this method for all types of shooting. But the 2nd method is actually more stable when you're using a considerably heavy trigger, such as the trigger on these compact double-action-only revolvers. For some odd reason, when using the finger tip method, if you exert a lot of force to try to press on a heavy trigger, you end up pulling on it since you're tightening up the muscles in your wrist.

Also contributing to this, small-framed revolvers' triggers are much closer to the grip than with a semi-auto, so using just the fingertip actually contorts your finger in a fairly uncomfortable angle. So using the second section of your finger instead of the tip actually results in a more comfortable grip and the muscles pull straight back instead of to the right like you would get if you use your finger tip.

So my suggestion is to try out both trigger methods on different weapons, but I think you'll find that you'll do better with the second method on weapons with smaller grips, closer triggers, and heavier triggers. And you'll find that the first method is more precise for everything else.

Reloading is different for every weapon, but I will just describe a pretty common reload method.

Now before you practice any kind of reload procedure, I suggest you invest in something called "snap caps" which are dummy rounds that are colored in a way so you know for sure it's a dummy round. The reason for this is that practicing reloading with empty magazines only will be difficult since most semi-auto's slide stop is activated by an empty magazine, making it sometimes difficult to drop while an empty magazine is inserted. This is not the case if the magazine is loaded, but practicing with loaded rounds is simply not a good idea for obvious safety reasons. Snap caps simulate a loaded magazine but the "bullets" do not have any powder or a real primer. So it is safe to dry fire with them inserted.

This guide will apply mainly to recoil blowback semi-automatic pistols in which the slide locks to the rear when the magazine is emptied.

The slide locks back, you verify that the magazine is indeed empty and it's not a misfeed, double feed, or any other kind of malfunction. If it is indeed empty, follow these steps to reload.

1. Drop the empty magazine out of the magazine well by depressing the magazine release button usually located close to where your thumb would be behind the trigger guard:
   
   While at the same time, duck the handgun off to your strong side so that the empty magazine will drop out off to the side and slightly behind your position so that you're not dropping the magazine directly in front of your feet. And then bring the weapon in close to the center of your body with your elbow tucked in along your side.
2. Secure your loaded magazine (only in a shooting situation, don't use loaded magazines in practice, only use snap caps to simulate real ammunition) with your support (weak side) hand, "indexing" the magazine by lining up your index finger along the front groove of the magazine so that inserting the magazine would be like pointing your finger up into the magazine well.
3. Insert the loaded magazine into the magazine well (rounds facing forward away from you and insert side with exposed rounds first) all the way, be sure to give it a nice nudge to make sure the magazine is fully inserted and locked in.
4. Grip the rear of the slide with your support hand, pull back on the slide, and then release the slide, allowing it to slap forward under the weight of the spring. DO NOT GUIDE THE SLIDE FORWARD WITH YOUR HAND! It should slap forward with force to properly go into battery. If the chamber is not properly locked and the round completely inside the chamber, the firearm can at best fail to function, or worse explode in your hands. Yah, you don't want that.
5. Push the weapon back out in front of you to continue firing.

There are two ways to release the slide. One method works in just about all semi-automatics, the other only with most of them. One method, is to manipulate the slide stop to release the slide. The slide stop lever should be located above your thumb right under the slide, pushing it down should result in the slide being released and returning to the home position. Now there are some handguns out there now that do not feature a manual slide stop that you can manually manipulate. This is under the assumption that manipulating a slide stop while under stress is a fine motor skill that some say is hard to do while under stress.

This would leave the other method, which is to rack the slide back slightly with your support hand and letting it go. This method will work even for the semi-automatic handguns that do have a slide stop lever.

I used to prefer using the manual slide stop with the 1911 and other firearms with a good slide stop, while using the racking method for the ones that don't, I feel that it is better to just train one way and one way only, so you won't have to consider what weapon you're holding before you can continue. So for this reason, I suggest using the more universal racking the slide method.

When it comes to drawing the weapon, it is important to get your weapon out in as little time as you can, but rushing can cause mistakes, which could then cause it to take longer. So don't rush it, but be steady and smooth. Doing it correctly the first time will always be faster than rushing, making a mistake, and having to correct said mistake.

Here are the steps of drawing or presenting your weapon:

1. Ensure no clothing or anything else is in the way of the weapon. If this is just a suit jacket or a vest, the best way is to "blade" your hand back along your body to move the clothing while simultaneously having your hand in the correct position to get a grip on the weapon. If you're wearing something like a T-shirt over it, then I suggest the lift and hook method where you lift your shirt and "hook" it behind the weapon or holster in one movement then moving your hand to the weapon.
2. With your strong side hand, firmly grip the weapon. Your support hand should be on your abdomen. At no point should your support hand be in front of the muzzle of the weapon, so keep this hand on your abdomen and out of the way of the weapon until after step 4.
3. If your holster has any kind of retention system, here is where you disengage it. If not, disregard that statement. Remove the weapon from the holster, just enough so the muzzle is clear of the holster.
4. Twist the weapon so the muzzle is pointed in the direction of the target.
5. Now start "pushing" the weapon forward, and simultaneously moving your support hand under the muzzle and onto the grip. Remember, your support hand should NEVER be in front of the muzzle at any time.
6. Push the weapon straight out until you have a proper grip/posture/sight picture. At all times, the muzzle should be pointed toward your target.

One wrong way to present your weapon that I've seen is where you draw, then swing the weapon up from the side to the proper position:
WRONG

Another wrong way is the infamous bring it all the way up before you bring it down:
WRONG
Now I've NEVER understood why people did this. I'm not sure if it's because they've seen it in a movie and subconsciously that's how they've practiced it in their heads or what, because I hardly see this as a "natural" motion, it takes roughly twice as long as the correct method and the first incorrect draw method. The muzzle is continuously pointed in both unsafe and useless directions all the way until the very end, by then it could be too late. It looks retarded. It really has absolutely no merit what-so-ever, but I see it VERY often.