Non-liquidation shootings rarely end in a fatality. Pass up your wallet if its contents are less valuable than the potential alternatives, unless you have strong convictions to the contrary and are willing to die for those convictions. If you're not going to pass up your wallet, just walk on and ignore them. That's usually the last thing they expect, and you will be far enough from them to be a less attractive target by the time they readjust. It takes a bit of work for most people, violent criminals included, to psych oneself up for a robbery, let alone a murder.
Really, if a firearm is pointed at you, it's too late to do much about it. You failed to deal with the threat at several points along the way, and the safest recourse is to surrender (i.e. pass up your wallet) or to not play the same game at all (i.e. walk on). There are a number of techniques for dealing with a firearm up close, but all require practice, practice and more practice, and most are unarmed.
Self defense doesn't start with violence.
It starts with habits, awareness, etc. To know that there are predators out there, how they pick their targets, how they close in, and what they do in order to prep themselves for violence, is the real solution. Anything else takes a huge chunk of time out of your life with little gain for most people. Spend that time on a first aid course instead. You will save far more lives, and it's about as likely to save yours as self defense training is, particularly if you bring a friend.
"You can't live your life cowering under the bed."
If you really want to understand how to defend yourself...
... then you really want to get a glimpse into what you're defending against. Go out around the time when the late shift ends, or when the clubs close or whatever. Pick a crime that is appealing to you, secretly or not. Then pick a target. Stalk the target. Be fully aware that they have no way of knowing that your intention is not malicious. Be equally aware that this means they may shoot or stab you with a hidden weapon. If you don't feel any adrenalin pumping at that prospect, call it a night. Else, go on. Be aware of the area and people around you, but emphasize sound and periphereal vision- they're not targets. Find a suitable location for the imagined crime. Get into the position where you are confident you could have done it, including the frame of mind. Want it. Then let it go and just move on in a likely direction to provide the fake victim with peace of mind. Go home. Think back at what you did, and what you could have done. Then think about why you picked that person, that location, that timing. Think about how you followed, how you positioned yourself. Think about when you decided you had an opening.
That's when you will be vulnerable, too.
More likely than not, if you play the game with some conviction, you will realize that you have rejected several potential targets. Why not them? And there will have been times when you considered aborting the game. Whence the doubt? Some locations will have seemed ideal, others really crappy. Which ones? Maybe you lost track of one fake victim and had to start over. Where, when and why? etc...
Not everyone can play the game with enough conviction to think as a predator does. And I suppose some of those who find it easy to think as one might be at risk of crossing that line, particularly since part of the point is to let oneself be tempted to do so, yet to refrain. Else, the realism of the simulation is pretty much lost. We all have a predatorial instinct to a varying degree, and understanding a predator means exploring one's own instinct. That instinct isn't roused by an intellectual exercise.
In the end, there's more to gain from that exploration and reflection than from self defense training.
"I don't need to outrun the bear, I just need to outrun you."
Sound like any other herd animals you know?
), i had that self-defense-toys mania too ..... and cause i was not yet experimenting with high voltages (not at 17), i had another idea ..... got a broken high power flash from a photographer friend, and made a box with condensers and oscillator and batteries inside, with the lamp on one side, and a pushbutton as trigger .....