Tacticool Tuesday - Lights prevent angels

Many of you train on your shooting skills, by shooting hundreds of stationary paper targets in lighted area with your bullets neatly stacked before you.  For anyone that owns a firearm, (or other defensive tool for that matter), how many of you have actually trained to clear a room in the event of a home invasion?  It seems pretty intuitive; you have a gun so you can defend your family and your property.  But how many have actually trained to protect them?  How many have trained at night?  How many know how many steps it takes from one obstacle to the next and where they are located? How high up are the light switches located?  Where are the mirrors?  Just like all things in training, when you train as you will fight, certain things become apparent.  One of these is the use of a light.

Before we go any further, please let me dispel one myth.  Unless your only defense is to sneak up on the bugler and attempt to give them a heart attack, use every opportunity to have to illuminate the area.  This means turning on lights, positioning lamps to your advantage or even having your spouse hold another light.  Despite your Youtube Academy credentials, you are not a Ninja, and when you are in your home, darkness is not your friend.  Yes, you can certainly barricade yourself in your room and call the police.  If you have little ones or if the good guys are too far or too busy to help you, this may not be an option.  To paraphrase an adage, failing to train, is training to fail.

Lights prevent angels

Lights and proper training could have prevented these types of senseless shootings:

Father Shoots Teen Daughter Mistaken for Intruder
Father 'shot dead teenage daughter he thought was a burglar'
Father mistakes son for burglar and accidentally shoots him during early-morning break-in

Clearing a house at night can be a tricky thing.  Is the noise you heard your teenage daughter sneaking back in?  Was it a raccoon that came in through a doggy door?  Or is it a Meth head looking to grab something quick to pawn?  Just like Coopers second and fourth rules, you must first identify your target before you pull the trigger.

The Two Schools

There are two schools of thought when it comes to lights and firearms: mounted on the gun or in your non-dominant hand.  I will list the advantages and disadvantages.

Weapon mounted

•  When you reach for the weapon, everything is "in hand".  No fumbling around to get both your weapon and the light is needed. 
•  Your free hand is needed to manipulate doors and move obstacles.  This is a huge advantage.
•  You will have to train to prevent a "negligent discharge" of the light.  Some models are obviously better than others in this regard.
•  Having a weapon mounted light is not binary; it is not one or the other.  You can still have a back up light.  

Flashlight in your non-dominant hand

• There is less of a learning curve to prevent a "negligent discharge" of the light if you are sneaking around your apartment.
• You can use the light as a striking weapon.
• You can ditch the light if need be and still have the weapon in hand. This is important in a dark room as the assailant will more likely grab for the light if he is blinded, (it is the only thing they can see), then they will for the gun.
• Due to its awkwardness, you will still need to train with the flashlight and weapon combo.  It is not intuitive.

I personally am a flashlight mounted kind of guy.  First off, my four year old loves to steal my flashlights for her own nefarious purposes.  For me, the deal breaker is the free hand to manipulate objects and turn on lights.  I had heard a rumor that when Larry Vickers remodeled his home, he had the light switches placed a couple of feet from the ground so he could turn them on with his knee when he cleared the room.  Use what you have available.

If you choose to have the light in your hand, either by design of your firearm or personal preference, this article gives you some alternate positions to use your light.  As with anything else, be wary of anyone that offers the "only solution".  Experts, if they call themselves that, come from thier own point of view that was developed over their experiences of what works and what does not.  Certain universal truths remain, (you have to be physically able to carry the fight to the enemy), but no doctrine is so flexible as to apply to every situation.  The first step is to get trained by a professional, and the next step is to train to your own situation, strengths, weaknesses, etc.

MORE LUMENS!!!

When it comes to your flashlights, certain things you will want to consider.  Availability and commonality of batteries, sound construction, positive or alternating types of on switches are all important.  Buy just like what type of caliber and ammunition you use, what comes out of the light is perhaps the greatest deal breaker when considering one model over the other.  Steamlight, Surefire, Pelican, Ezetta, Inova, etc. all make very fine lights.  What differentiates one over the other is the lumens or the brightness.  Bigger is better in this case.

The best defensive shooting is the one you do not have to make.  If the target is blinded, they cannot effectively fight back.  This may be enough to take the piss out of the perpetrator, or at least give him pause while you get yourself into a better position or buy needed moments until the Cavalry arrives.  As many police can attest to, more lumens means more effectiveness.  You do have the possibility of blinding yourself on reflective surfaces, but knowing where these potential hazards are will become evident in training.

If given the choice between the cute "compact ninja" model of 200 lumens and the slightly bulkier 600 to 2000 lumen lights, go with the bigger one.  You cant go wrong and you can always dress down with filters if need be.

Of course, you can own night vision and make this all largely a moot point.  You will, however, still need to train as if you do not have it.  Batteries die and equipment degrades.  Lights are pretty simple tools so the possibility of them going dead on you are significantly less.  Like it was observed in Fight Club, the survival rate of everything goes to zero on a long enough timeline.   So do you, if you are not careful.

Do you see the light?