Shootout in the context of Volusia County, Florida

A police tactical unit (PTU) is a specialized police unit trained and equipped to handle situations that are beyond the capabilities of ordinary law enforcement units because of the level of violence (or risk of violence) involved. The tasks of a police tactical unit may include executing dangerous search warrants and arrest warrants for dangerous persons; arresting or neutralizing dangerous or mentally ill armed persons; and intervening in high-risk situations such as shootouts, standoffs, hostage-takings, and terrorist incidents.

A mass shooting is a violent crime in which one or more attackers use a firearm to kill or injure multiple individuals in rapid succession. Mass shootings with multiple deceased victims are a form of mass murder. There is no widely accepted specific definition of the term, and different organizations tracking such incidents use different criteria. Mass shootings are characterized by the targeting, often indiscriminate, of victims outside a combat setting, and the term generally excludes warfare, gang violence, shootouts, and self-defense. The perpetrator of an ongoing mass shooting may be referred to as an active shooter.

Mass shootings may be done for personal or psychological reasons, such as by individuals who are deeply disgruntled, seeking notoriety, or are intensely angry at a perceived grievance; though they have also been used as a terrorist tactic, such as when members of an ethnic or religious group are deliberately targeted. It has been theorized that media coverage of mass shootings has contributed to later shooters being motivated by fame-seeking. After mass shootings, mental health issues such as survivor's guilt and post-traumatic stress disorder are commonly suffered by survivors, first responders, and victims' loved ones.

A SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) team is a generic term for a police tactical unit within the United States, though the term has also been used by other nations.

SWAT units are generally trained, equipped, and deployed to resolve "high-risk situations", often those regular police units are not trained or equipped to handle, such as shootouts, standoffs, raids, hostage-takings, and terrorism. SWAT units are equipped with specialized weapons and equipment not normally issued to regular police units, such as automatic firearms, high-caliber sniper rifles, stun grenades, body armor, ballistic shields, night-vision devices, and armored vehicles, among others. SWAT units are often trained in special tactics such as close-quarters combat, door breaching, crisis negotiation, and de-escalation.

In military tactics, the kill zone, also known as killing zone, is an area entirely exposed to effective direct fire or accurately zeroed indirect fire, typically as an element of ambush within which an approaching enemy force is encircled/flanked, engaged and destroyed. The objective of the ambushing force is to seize the element of surprise to quickly kill or capture all hostile combatants inside the kill zone, and the ambushed soldiers (who may or may not be trapped) may respond by counterattacking and/or breaking out of the kill zone.

The term is also used in non-lethal sense in military exercises and simulations, as well as in recreational wargaming and MilSim shooting sports such as paintball, airsoft and laser tag, as a region within the training area, playing field or arena where intense shootouts and elimination of participants are most likely to happen.

Gunfighters, also called gunslingers (/ˈɡʌnslɪŋər/), were individuals in the American Old West who gained a reputation of being dangerous with a firearm and participated in deadly shootouts. The gunfighter can be a lawman, outlaw, cowboy, shooting exhibitionist, or a hired gun, who is quick on the draw with a handgun or highly-skilled with rifles and shotguns. The feats of such individuals would end up becoming part of frontier folklore, and through the years would gain increasing degree of exaggeration. In modern times, many historians attempted to separate fact and fiction between such historical gunmen.

Nevertheless, the gunfighter had an impact in both history and in popular culture, becoming one of the most enduring characters in the Western genre. These characters appeared in many associated films, television shows, video games, and literature. Gunfighters influenced other fields as well, from sports shooting, fashion, to military skills based on their supposed abilities. The influence of gunfighters also garnered interest internationally, with many foreign fictional characters and stories derived or based from the character of the gunfighter.