No. 1: You Must Be an Active Participant in Your Own Rescue

People who thinks the cavalry is going to come over the hill and save them at the last minute have spent too much time in front of the TV. Any street cop will tell you that the times when they have interrupted a crime in progress were memorable because that doesn’t happen often. Police response times are measured in minutes, while crimes in progress are measured in seconds. So unless the officer is on top of the event when it occurs, stopping a crime while it happens is highly unlikely.

via Spaulding’s Rules of Conflict – Training – LawOfficer.com.

Makes for VERY interesting reading. I will disagree with #6 though on Gun Nut value alone.