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>> PINCUS: It is important to talk about integrating the flashlight with the gun itself. This solution
is something that we have seen a lot of the magazine we see on TV, we see in the hands
of military and law enforcement professionals quite frequently. The fact is that there is
almost nothing more convenient than having a flashlight on the firearm particularly long
guns when we already have both hands busy, but also on the pistols so that we can be
in a situation where we can activate that light either momentarily or in the constant
on mode be searching, moving, engaging threats, coming back into a ready position doing all
the things we need to do with this light on.
But when you are in a home defense situation when you are trying to keep yourself hidden
from the bad guy, when you are trying to keep your family safe and more specifically if
your family members are moving around that house or if you are not sure who is in the
house with you and whether or not they represent a threat, you probably don't want to have
your only lighting option be an option that immediately points a gun at someone if you
used the brightest spot on that white light to identify them.
Turning your flashlight into a gun or turning your gun into a flashlight is not your best
defense when it comes to moving through the home and understanding what it is you need
to do with these two tools separately. So I preferred to look at a situation where the
flashlight is separate from the firearm as a primary light, but you still may want to
invest in a less expensive LED-type in this situation light, which you can attach to the
rails of your firearm if you have them or you can get a rail attachment that will apply
the most any type of firearm and now you have a backup light source built in to your firearm.
If this light were to be lost, if this light were to break. If I have to drop it in order
to secure a family member, push them behind me, I now can come back to this light source
as my new primary. It is a backup light. It may not be as powerful. It may not be as rugged
as the more expensive military law enforcement type lights but this does give me a backup
option that still secured to the firearm will always be with the firearm when it is in the
safe or when it is in the storage area where I keep it handy for home defense but it doesn't
mean that I'm relying on turning my firearm into a flashlight when I'm using my primary
light searching intermittently and indirectly.
Now there is other special neat light situation that are also available we should take a look
at. This particular light is made by a company called First Light, just like our tomahawk
L shape this light is designed for hands free use. All of the buttons I need to utilize
a light are set up on top of this bar. I can adjust this handle so that it fits the back
of my hand and now I can keep two hands on my firearm, I can push somebody out of the
way, I can even carry a child and still get to manipulate this light any directions that
it will help me to find my way to find and identify threats to do whatever else it is
I may need to do with this hand other than just work the flashlight maybe something as
simple as open a door, maybe beyond the phone with 911 explaining what is going on but having
the option of quickly transitioning to the use of this flashlight whenever I need to.
So this light is an interesting option of course designed primarily for law enforcement
and military but this is one of the tools that that industry uses that still may be
of great value to you in a home defense or personal defense situation.
[pause]
Now we know that we want to use intermittent and indirect light when we are searching and
trying to find a threat. It is best to do that with a handheld flashlight preferably
one with a lanyard or one that secures itself to your hand in some other way. This is going
to allow you to get the freedom of use of this hand if you need it to open the door,
pick up a child, maybe fight with someone or even go to a two-handed shooting position
if you have that much need for precision and deviation control during your critical incident.
You will be able to get the flashlight back into your hand quickly with a lanyard sets
my preference when it comes to tube lights.
Now to keep the flashlight in close proximity to where you sleep or there is area that you
spend a lot of time in and in the house, it is going to be easier for you to get to that
flashlight when you might need it. Particularly at night if you have large home or if you
have a basement are or maybe an attic work space or some other area of your house it
doesn't get light during the day from natural sources outside, windows or sky lights, you
might also find yourself in dark conditions during the day. I meet a lot of people who
say they always carry a flashlight at night but during the day when you are moving around
even when they might find themselves inside of large buildings, office structures, malls,
theatres places which obviously can be dark, they don't think to have the light with them.
Keeping a light with you is something that is easy to do especially if you are already
taking the time, effort and energy to carry a firearm with you. Have the light handy whether
it is in your home or outside the home and we have talked a lot about the intermittent
and indirect searching concept. When you use that concept we are going to be able to find
and identify threats without necessarily letting them know where we are. Now in this case I
am obviously pretty well lit. We wouldn't consider this a low light situation. You can
see me. The camera is picking me up just fine I am illuminated even though I am in the dark.
This isn't brightly lit day time. We don't know exactly what is down there.
Now you can probably tell if there is a target there. It is probably not surprising. We are
here on the flat range of 360 Tactical Training at Memorial Shooting Center and there is always
going to be targets down range and we are going to be standing up range. So we know
that that target is there.It is a little contrite for me to say well now I'm searching because
we have enough light for the cameras to pick me up. We have a gray target on white background
in a relatively bright room so obviously finding and searching for that target is not something
that we really can simulate, but let's think about what we have if there is less light.
The camera probably doesn't see me as well from this angle. There is certainly not a
lot of light coming from this side. I have got darkness over here in this part of the
room. What if there was someone wearing dark clothing, maybe a very dark complexion there
in the dark? There is less light, there is no reflected light in that area of the house.
Now I really do need my artificial light source to be able to find the intermittent and indirect
searching that target. When I find that target, I can use my flashlight to illuminate directly
so that I can identify the threat and of course I could go into a shooting position one handed
or two handed and shoot that target. Now there is enough light for me to still see that threat
even though I may not have been able to identify it without directly illuminating. As I go
into my shooting position I can rotate the light out of the way pointed down at the ground
and use reflected light to still see that threat and shoot. I don't need to try to line
the flashlight up with my gun. If I do that it is going to take more time, effort and
energy.
Now there may be a time, there might be a place where we do want to do that. If you
find yourself I a situation where you need two hands on the gun there are different techniques.
There is the cigar technique where we put the flashlight between our first two fingers.
We are going to use the palm of our hand to press that button and illuminate the flashlight.
We are going to place that hand up against the gun just like we normally would with the
flashlight pressed back against our fingers or against our palm. We can leave our hand
here press in against the gun to add a little extra stability or we can wrap around the
front and push back against our fingers on our strong hand side to illuminate this way.
Again, we don't recommend these techniques as your primary way of engaging in a dark
setting. If you just simply use the flashlight to find and identify your threats and then
use the firearm to engage that threat you are probably going to shoot much better and
shoot more efficiently. These contrive techniques of getting two hands on the gun whether you
use the cigar technique or any other technique don't really help you shoot faster, and if
you don't need the light to shoot the target don't use the light to shoot the target.
Don't become dependent on these things that may work really well for a few minutes at
a time inside of a shoot house, inside of a scenario area or certainly during a competition
when the targets are just like this and you probably can see them anyway much less during
the qualification course which is supposed to be low light when the fact is this is darker
than almost every low light shoot I had ever done for qualification and I can see that
target just fine. I don't need this flashlight and in fact you see some of the smarter guys
on the shooting line you need to get a better score not really worrying as much about the
flashlight when you can see the target and you are really just out there going through
a training motion.