Why do the bullets spawn from the middle of the scene?

Question

I'm making a 2D game with Unity. I have a patrol enemy that has to shoot bullets. The problem is that the bullets are being spawned from a random point at the middle of the scene, instead of bulletSpawnPos (an empty game object which is a child of the pistol). I also want the enemy to shoot whenever the player is near. But it seems like all the code does is to shoot towards it, no matter if it's near or not. In general I want to solve these two problems that are pretty much related to each other:

1. Bullets should be spawn frombulletSpawnPos.
2. Enemy should start shooting whenever the player is near (maybe by triggering something).

Pistol script:

using System.Collections;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using UnityEngine;

public class Pistol : MonoBehaviour
{
    [SerializeField] GameObject bullet;
    [SerializeField] Transform bulletSpawnPos;
    private bool isShooting;
    [SerializeField] private float shootDistance = 5f;
    [SerializeField] private float shootDelay = .5f;
    private Enemy enemy; 

    void Start()
    {
        enemy = transform.parent.GetComponent<Enemy>();
        InvokeRepeating("Shoot", 1f, shootDelay);
        Rigidbody2D rb = GetComponent<Rigidbody2D>();
    }

    private void FixedUpdate()
    {
        //Detecting hits to the right 
        RaycastHit2D hit = Physics2D.Raycast(transform.position, Vector2.right, shootDistance);
        //making sure we hit something and it is the player
        if (hit.collider != null && hit.collider.tag.Equals("Player"))
        {
            //We only want to start repeated shooting in case we do not shoot yet
            if (!isShooting) InvokeRepeating("Shoot", 0f, shootDelay);
            isShooting = true;
        }
        else
        {
            //Stopping ongoing shooting
            if (isShooting) CancelInvoke("Shoot");
            isShooting = false;
        }
    }
    void Shoot()
    {
        GameObject b = Instantiate(bullet);
        b.GetComponent<Bullet>().StartShoot(enemy.IsFacingLeft());
        b.transform.position = bulletSpawnPos.transform.position;
    }
}

Bullet script:

using System.Collections;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using UnityEngine;

public class Bullet : MonoBehaviour
{
    [SerializeField] float speed;
    [SerializeField] int damage;
    [SerializeField] GameObject bullet;
    GameObject Enemy;
    float timeToDestroy = 3;
    
     NewPlayer target;
    Vector2 moveDirection;

    void Start()
    {
        Rigidbody2D rb = GetComponent<Rigidbody2D>();
        target = GameObject.FindObjectOfType<NewPlayer>();
        moveDirection = (target.transform.position - transform.position).normalized * speed;
        rb.velocity = new Vector2(moveDirection.x, moveDirection.y);
        Destroy(gameObject, 3f);
    }

    public void StartShoot(bool isFacingLeft)
    {
        Rigidbody2D rb = GetComponent<Rigidbody2D>();
        if (isFacingLeft)
        {
            rb.velocity = new Vector2(-speed, 0);
        }
        else
        {
            rb.velocity = new Vector2(speed, 0);
        }

        Destroy(gameObject, timeToDestroy);
    }

    private void OnTriggerEnter2D(Collider2D collision)
     {
         if (collision.gameObject.name.Equals ("Player"))
         {
             Destroy(gameObject);
         }
     } 
}

Enemy script:

using System.Collections;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using UnityEngine;

public class Enemy : PhysicsObject
{
    [Header("Attributes")]
    [SerializeField] private int attackPower = 10;
    private int direction = 1;
    public int health = 100;
    private int maxHealth = 100;
    [SerializeField] private float maxSpeed;
    [SerializeField] private LayerMask rayCastLayerMask; //Which layer do we want the raycast to interact with?
    [SerializeField] private Vector2 rayCastOffset; //Offset from the center of the raycast origin
    [SerializeField] private float rayCastLength = 2;
    bool isFacingLeft;
    public bool IsFacingLeft()
    {
        return isFacingLeft;
    }

    [Header("References")]
    private RaycastHit2D rightLedgeRaycastHit;
    private RaycastHit2D leftLedgeRaycastHit;
    private RaycastHit2D rightWallRaycastHit;
    private RaycastHit2D leftWallRaycastHit;

    // Update is called once per frame
    void Update()
    {
        targetVelocity = new Vector2(maxSpeed * direction, 0);

        if (targetVelocity.x < -.01)
        {
            transform.localScale = new Vector2(-1, 1);
            isFacingLeft = true;
        }
        else if (targetVelocity.x > .01)
        {
            transform.localScale = new Vector2(1, 1);
            isFacingLeft = false;
        }

        //Check for right ledge!
        rightLedgeRaycastHit = Physics2D.Raycast(new Vector2(transform.position.x + rayCastOffset.x, transform.position.y + rayCastOffset.y), Vector2.down, rayCastLength);
        Debug.DrawRay(new Vector2(transform.position.x + rayCastOffset.x, transform.position.y + rayCastOffset.y), Vector2.down * rayCastLength, Color.blue);
        if (rightLedgeRaycastHit.collider == null) direction = -1;

        //Check for left ledge!
        leftLedgeRaycastHit = Physics2D.Raycast(new Vector2(transform.position.x - rayCastOffset.x, transform.position.y + rayCastOffset.y), Vector2.down, rayCastLength);
        Debug.DrawRay(new Vector2(transform.position.x - rayCastOffset.x, transform.position.y + rayCastOffset.y), Vector2.down * rayCastLength, Color.green);
        if (leftLedgeRaycastHit.collider == null) direction = 1;

        //Check for right wall!
        rightWallRaycastHit = Physics2D.Raycast(new Vector2(transform.position.x, transform.position.y), Vector2.right, rayCastLength, rayCastLayerMask);
        Debug.DrawRay(new Vector2(transform.position.x, transform.position.y), Vector2.right * rayCastLength, Color.red);
        if (rightWallRaycastHit.collider != null) direction = -1;

        //Check for left wall!
        leftWallRaycastHit = Physics2D.Raycast(new Vector2(transform.position.x, transform.position.y), Vector2.left, rayCastLength, rayCastLayerMask);
        Debug.DrawRay(new Vector2(transform.position.x, transform.position.y), Vector2.left * rayCastLength, Color.magenta);
        if (leftWallRaycastHit.collider != null) direction = 1;

        //If health < 0, destroy me
        if (health <= 0)
        {
            Destroy(gameObject);
        }
    }


    //If I collide with the player, hurt the player (health is going to decrease, update the UI)
    void OnCollisionEnter2D(Collision2D col)
    {
        if (col.gameObject == NewPlayer.Instance.gameObject)
        {
            //Hurt the player, then update the UI!
            NewPlayer.Instance.health -= attackPower;
            NewPlayer.Instance.UpdateUI();
        }
    }
}

This is the pistol inspector window.

Enemy object structure

Answer 1

Assuming you have your whole enemy structured like this:

Your pistol script is on the Pistol part, you need to access the parent if you want to get it the Enemy with GetComponent. GetComponent works always from the element you are currently on, if it is a child of Enemy, you need to ask the parent for the component. You can as well make the enemy variable public and assign it in the editor.

enemy = transform.parent.GetComponent<Enemy>();

Make sure that your Enemy is at 0/0/0 to avoid weird bugs later if you spawn them.

To address your shooting with a distance check. One option would be to use a Raycast (basically a line that you can check if it hits something). Since you can set how far it goes, you can define a distance check with it quite easily. This is added to your Pistol script. Try to adjust it yourself to make it work when the Enemy is facing left. Make sure that your Player has a collider2D and is tagged as Player.

[SerializeField] private float shootDistance = 5f;
private void FixedUpdate()
{
    //Detecting hits to the right 
    RaycastHit2D hit = Physics2D.Raycast(transform.position, Vector2.right, shootDistance);
    //making sure we hit something and it is the player
    if (hit.collider != null && hit.collider.tag.Equals("Player"))
    {
        //We only want to start repeated shooting in case we do not shoot yet
        if (!isShooting) InvokeRepeating("Shoot", 0f, shootDelay);
        isShooting = true;
    }
    else
    {
        //Stopping ongoing shooting
        if (isShooting) CancelInvoke("Shoot");
        isShooting = false;
    }
}

The InvokeRepeating is taking care of the delay between each firing. As long as the player stands in front of the Enemy (currently to his right only), he would fire.