Many good points have been brought up on this thread, I agree with most of them. For 39 years I went into trouble. When I did I never ever blindly ran into it. I did it tactically, later in life I read a saying by another "never run to your death."
With good to great situational awareness, I and we, (others on here) can tactically retreat also. Defending ourselves doesn't always mean with a firearm. Because this is a gun forum we focus on guns. A tactical retreat can be as easy as driving another direction, when on foot crossing to the other side of the street. Trust your gut, as an example: If you are going to a ATM machine to withdraw money and as you access the area. If you see several young men standing nearby and looking all around and than focus in on you and your car. Just continue driving there is another ATM somewhere. In the end, we may never know if those guys would attempt to harm you or not. But, your situational awareness kicked in and you survived. You won.
Now of course, the law does not say you need to avoid trouble, also just because you have a firearm does not mean you should go out and look for it either.