bear-knuckle

How do you feel about gun control?

It's not bad in the sense that it's useless. Like most combatives programs, Krav techniques are 100% valid in self-defense. It's not like some kung fu class where you're "taught" shit like breaking your opponent's fist by holding their wrist and elbowing downward upon the hand (personal experience here).

Krav Maga teaches logical and straightforward self-defense, but the curriculum is drill-heavy. Drills are awesome, but your enemy won't always come at you "like this" so you can "do this." Combat is chaotic. You have to know what to take what your opponent gives you and make use of it. An angle change of 20 degrees or a distance change of four inches completely changes the context of the engagement. Your foe might be too close or too far to use the technique you learned, or his sudden resistance (which you don't usually experience in drills) could limit the effectiveness of the technique. A life-or-death struggle is not the time to realize that you're unable to use your skills fluidly against a resisting opponent's semi-random attack pattern.

TL;DR: Krav Maga is a good skill set. At this point in most of the US, the quality and method of instruction could be better, which is why I recommend MMA or judo.

I'd have to disagree. Krav is basically MMA except with more "illegal" strikes and disarms and less sparring. This is not a fair trade-off. If you know how to front kick, you know how to front kick the groin. If you know how to ippon seoi nage, you know how to disarm a gun or knife - just hold onto the weapon rather than the wrist. But when your body goes into flight-or-fight mode, as the OP knows, instinct takes over. If you're untrained, it's great, but if you're trained, the adrenaline can overtake your training. Sparring gives you comfortability under pressure and allows you to use your technique.

If I were the OP, I'd take MMA or judo. I'm a boxer, judoka and jiujiteiro, and I have to say judo has taught me the most useful information in the shortest period of time. That's not to say it's a perfect art, but judo throws are simple to execute against resisting, untrained opponents, can be trained for no-gi and includes enough groundwork for self-defense purposes. Bonus: thugs wearing hoodies are practically begging to be thrown and cross-collar choked.