That is why i like it. You are playing other people so your chances in a gun fight are 50/50. Factor in that most people playing it are putting hours in to it and your chances are less then 50/50. I'm a bit rubbish so i tend to get killed 4 out of every 5 times.
One thing that might help is to play quads. You have 3 others that you can run around with and let them do more of the fighting. The only issue with that is it can be a bit hectic at the start, lots of people drop into the popular areas on the map and get straight into a gun fight and there is often carnage in the first minute. I tend to keep an eye on where the squad is dropping and will only follow if its quiet, i prefer to run around a bit collecting some half decent weapons and armour and then work my way over to join the squad.