You’ve shelled out your hard-earned money to equip your handgun with night sights and a laser. Do you really need to bring a light along? The answer might shock some people.
Scenario
It’s the middle of the night and you’re awakened by a noise. The dog is growling at something and you hear the floor creaking as though someone is walking in your house. You’ve planned how to protect yourself and your family from intruders for your entire adult life.
Grabbing your pistol (equipped with night sights and the aforementioned laser), you quietly creep down the hallway. Sure enough, you see someone silhouetted against the window and he has something in his hand. As he turns toward you and begins to raise his hand, you aim and can see the glowing night sights on the silhouette. As you squeeze off three quick rounds into the target, it falls.
Turning on the lights, you find, to your horror, that it’s your daughter’s boyfriend. You didn’t realize he was staying in the house and decided to leave before you found out he was there. It turns out that the object in his hand was a cell phone.
At this point, you have several things to deal with:
Conscience
You’ll have to live with what you did for the rest of your life. Can you do that?
The Law
You can be fairly certain that the law is not going to be a harbinger of good tidings and Christmas cheer when they show up and find out that you just killed a friendly.
You may be charged criminally with a crime (yes, stupidity can be a crime in certain circumstances). Aside from that, you most likely will face a civil suit for millions of dollars (and you will lose).
Family
You’ll have to deal with the victim’s family, as well as your own. Can you face them?
So, in this scenario were the night sights and the laser enough? If you think this scenario doesn’t happen, you’re wrong. And certainly, this is not the only scenario that could happen, but it’s one that a lot of people could potentially face.
Even outside your home, you need to identify whether or not you’re facing an actual threat and whether or not it’s armed and really attacking you. It’s difficult enough in the daylight when you can see. At night, the darkness adds a whole new complication.
It really is essential to have a light.
Lessons Learned
In the above scenario, since you didn’t avail yourself of a flashlight, you could have utilized the lights in your house. You also could have challenged the ‘intruder.’
But since the incident has already played out, it’s too late because a life has been lost. This is why it’s important and beneficial to educate yourself about defensive situations.
Considerations
Lights
We need to be equipped with a hand-held light that is sufficiently bright. Preferably, bright enough to blind an attacker. Ideally, it will have a push-button tail switch so that the thumb can activate the light if we need it in an emergency. If we drop the light and the pressure is released from the tail switch, the light is extinguished. Either way, a flashlight is essential if we carry a firearm for defense (and even if we do not).
Some folks have mounted a light directly to their pistol. However, this should not be used for searching because you will, at some point, be pointing a light at a person who is likely not a threat. Once a threat is identified (using a hand-held tactical light), then the weapon and weapon light can be brought to bear on the threat.
When you identify the threat using your handheld light, simply drop it (it will go out if you’re using a tail switch) and engage with the weapon-mounted light. You can retrieve the handheld light later.
If you are not using a weapon-mounted light, just engage using the handheld light. Simple as that.
So either way, you need to have a hand-held light with you.
I have a WML (Weapon Mounted Light) on my Glock 19X, which is one of my home defense firearms. Should I need that pistol to defend my home, that light will be a welcomed addition.
However, if I carry the 19X concealed, I take the WML off because it adds even more bulk and weight to an already sizeable pistol.
Ambient Light
In many places, various sources that do supply light (street lights, buildings, cars, etc.). Look around next time you’re out and about; there is probably more light than you realized. Learn how shadows work too because they play a factor in defense. Under certain conditions, the ambient light from your surroundings might be sufficient for identifying threats.
Consider this: more crime happens in cities than anywhere else. Bad guys don’t typically carry flashlights to illuminate victims with, instead choosing to rely on that ambient light. So if you’re being robbed or carjacked, chances are that there’s enough light for the bad guys to see you just fine. Conversely, there’s a good chance that you’ll also be able to see them just as well.
Criminal Habits
Bad guys are fond of operating at night, so the chances of our needing a firearm at night are rather high (if we ever happen to need one). Of course, it’s not guaranteed, but take a look at criminal activity trends—the dark gives bad guys cover, and they like that.
Force Option
A bright light can become a force option, in that it may blind an attacker temporarily. In some instances, the bad guy may even break off the attack so that you don’t have to use physical force. Taking away your attacker’s vision temporarily can be quite a deterrent, given how much we rely on our sense of sight.
Beyond that, it can also send a message to the criminal that hey, this victim seems prepared to fight back. Maybe it’s better if I look for someone who’s unprepared.
A Final Word
The ability to identify whether we are facing a friend or foe is absolutely vital, especially if we carry a weapon that is capable of lethal force. A light will help us to do that.
Failure to identify a target opens us up to legal and civil ramifications, not to mention our own conscience. Spending a few dollars on a decent light is such a simple, inexpensive way to prevent a wrongful shooting that it behooves us to do so.
