So outdoors you aren’t confirming that they’re a threat with a light before you shoot them?
How do you figure that?
Weapon mounted lights....
- Thread starter mokin
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How do you figure that?
With a hand held light, if necessary, yes, of course.
Outdoors, that confirmation must precede drawing the gun.
If one wields a firearm with a WML without having a basis for a reasonable belief (judged by other later) that on is in imminent danger, one commits a serious crime.
There are legal presumptions that apply within one's occupied domicile that can provide a basis that belief. The important thing indoors is to make sure that the target is not a friend, family member, or LEO in hot pursuit before the trigger is pulled.
My concern with weapon-mounted lights stems from three concerns. The first is that I am concerned with providing a threat with a single point to aim at. However, this concern is somewhat mitigated by the reality that, while it is a single point, it is very had to aim at a bright light.
My next two concerns remain the same. The first is the gun handling issue that results from pointing the firearm at the "unknown," be it a racoon, legitimate threat, child or police officer.
The final issue remains the concern for accidental discharge when attempting to activate the light. When pushing and pulling controls on a firearm there is a risk of a mix-up. People on various gun boards have pohooed this concern in the past when I brought it up. However, a bit of research has shown that this is not an uncommon issue. I strongly recommend looking at this report by the Los Angelis County Sheriffs department. The relevant part starts on page 35. The simple facts are that there is cause for concern.
One thing that they recommend is the removal of pressure plates behind the trigger and recommend only having light control buttons or toggles forward of the trigger. However, there are pages of documented unintended discharges, that resulted in shooting someone, in that report. Even if you are entirely sold on weapon-mounted lights, it is worth a read.
My next two concerns remain the same. The first is the gun handling issue that results from pointing the firearm at the "unknown," be it a racoon, legitimate threat, child or police officer.
The final issue remains the concern for accidental discharge when attempting to activate the light. When pushing and pulling controls on a firearm there is a risk of a mix-up. People on various gun boards have pohooed this concern in the past when I brought it up. However, a bit of research has shown that this is not an uncommon issue. I strongly recommend looking at this report by the Los Angelis County Sheriffs department. The relevant part starts on page 35. The simple facts are that there is cause for concern.
One thing that they recommend is the removal of pressure plates behind the trigger and recommend only having light control buttons or toggles forward of the trigger. However, there are pages of documented unintended discharges, that resulted in shooting someone, in that report. Even if you are entirely sold on weapon-mounted lights, it is worth a read.
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I see what you did there.
I don’t think you are understanding what I’m saying.
Scenario : It’s dark. You hear a noise outside your home, you don’t really think it’s anything but you go outside. It’s windy and about to rain and you have a tarp over some camping stuff in the back of your truck for a trip tomorrow and you want to make sure the tarp is still over it. You have your pistol with a WML and a handheld flashlight (because that’s what I actually have normally). Several people are out there in front of your house. You just went out there to check out a noise thinking it might be that tarp or an animal. Instead there are several drunk and hostile twenty somethings.
You have the handheld light pointed at their feet, but you can see them from the spill. The shoot part of the *shoot/no shoot* factor starts to rear its ugly head, one of them is threatening you rudely and profanely with a weapon and advancing for the mortal sin of asking them to please go elsewhere at midnight.
Once you actually draw the pistol you don’t think it’s a good idea to turn on the weapon mounted light that you have on your pistol to once again ID the target to make sure that it’s what you should actually be shooting at if commands aren’t sufficient?
I do. Multiple people, some are hostile, some are likely just there.
Don't you think most people on this forum realize that it’s a crime to be pointing a loaded firearm at other people if they aren’t a threat?
Not everything needs to be at kindergarten level.
Careful! If you have chosen to advance toward possible trouble. stand your ground immunity would likely not apply.
Certainly, if you cannot so determine without it and if the used of deadly force would be lawful.
Bad tactic, though.
"Most"? Maybe. But the firearm need not be loaded, and it need not be pointed at anyone, to result in the commission of a crime.
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If deadly force was lawful then why would using the light be a bad tactic?
Did you read the article by Tom Givens?
If you don't need it you don't want to use it.
There is an increased risk of ND.
Also, it might give the attacker something to follow as you move off line, and give away you position to an assailant.
I'm sorry.I was referring to heading out toward possible trouble as a bad tactic.
Over the years, we hav had numerous cases in which someone has headed out into the yard or down to the gate to see hat people were doing on their property, taking a firearm "just in case".
They expected to mount a legal defens of self defense in the event of trouble--but found that their having gone forward rather than having stayed inside had negated their defense at trial
Nothing to do with the light, just with the example scenario
This has been a productive discussion. Thanks to the OP and the other participants.
We have revised our ST&T Sticky thread on "When Can I Draw" to include the following.
We have revised our ST&T Sticky thread on "When Can I Draw" to include the following.
Flashlights and Weapon Mounted Lights
A number of people have chosen to equip their defensive firearms with attached light sources.
It is extremely important to understand that such accessories are not to be regarded as flashlights. They are parts of weapons. Their purpose is to illuminate a target when and only when the display or presentation of a firearm would be lawful, for the purpose of making an effective shot possible in very low light.
For illuminating people and areas, and for searching, hand held lights should be used instead.
In the event that a defender is within an occupied dwelling or other "highly defensible property", the law may provide a presumption (which is rebuttable) that deadly force would be justified. That would, of course, make the presentation of a weapon lawful.
If the firearm is equipped with a WML and it is turned on, extreme care should be taken to prevent the light from being pointed at anyone, unless that person has been identified as a lawful target for the immediate use of deadly force, and to prevent injury due to an unintentional discharge.
Toward those ends, the user should always keep the firearm pointed in a safe direction, and rely upon the light reflecting from floors and walls to help identify persons.
The importance of training and practice should be self evident.
That's just one section. The Sticky covers more than drawing. There are legal implications whenever a firearm is drawn, exposed, touched, or even discussed during an encounter in which the carrier intends to cause someone to do something or to not do something. Those are discussed in that thread.A number of people have chosen to equip their defensive firearms with attached light sources.
It is extremely important to understand that such accessories are not to be regarded as flashlights. They are parts of weapons. Their purpose is to illuminate a target when and only when the display or presentation of a firearm would be lawful, for the purpose of making an effective shot possible in very low light.
For illuminating people and areas, and for searching, hand held lights should be used instead.
In the event that a defender is within an occupied dwelling or other "highly defensible property", the law may provide a presumption (which is rebuttable) that deadly force would be justified. That would, of course, make the presentation of a weapon lawful.
If the firearm is equipped with a WML and it is turned on, extreme care should be taken to prevent the light from being pointed at anyone, unless that person has been identified as a lawful target for the immediate use of deadly force, and to prevent injury due to an unintentional discharge.
Toward those ends, the user should always keep the firearm pointed in a safe direction, and rely upon the light reflecting from floors and walls to help identify persons.
The importance of training and practice should be self evident.
About face, hole up in the house, call 911, and ponder the mindset and skill set that allowed a dangerous and rowdy crowd to sneak up on me.
luzyfuerza
Member
Tritium night sights don't quite have "zero usefulness", but they are useful only in limited circumstances. They are good when ambient light is too limited to make sure that sights are aligned, but when there is enough light to identify the nature of a potential target. In rural environments, this is often just a few minutes between sundown and true darkness or just before dawn. That's a pretty narrow window. However, there may be more situations that meet this criteria in areas that have artificial light sources. The artificial light need not be from a hand-held or WM light.
A controllable light source, either handheld or WM, is MUCH more useful in many more circumstances.
Hunkering down in a closet...I agree that there's no value, at least that I can see.
Actually it’s a situation that happened to a former neighbor of mine.
I guess he doesn’t live up to your idea of living up to some sort of super duper tactical mindset. He went to check out what was an ordinary noise on his property to fix it.
People do it every day. Mostly they find that the wind has blown over their trash can or things of that nature.
Some can quibble about the scenario presented and come up with straw arguments about pointing guns (loaded or unloaded) at people where the situation doesn’t call for it simply because they want to avoid coming to the conclusion that weapon mounted lights are just one more tool in the toolbox and they believe that they’ll never leave their house and that the power can never go off. Whatever, have at it.
I guess it’s easier to try to argue about that that face the fact that you really don’t know what you’re talking about.
Once you’ve actually drawn your gun and you’re presenting it at someone in a low light situation that actually warrants it that’s a good time to use a weapon mounted light.
Otherwise use a handheld flashlight.
Go ahead and insert a counter argument where you’ll try to say I’m suggesting that it’s a good idea to point loaded or unloaded weapons at people and objects that don’t need guns pointed at them and also try to claim that I’m also suggesting that you use them to perform mundane tasks, but it’s pretty transparent what some posters are doing.
If you haven’t ever done any training with a weapon mounted light your opinion is invalid. As one poster noted it’s interesting some would have such strong opinions on them.
Simple solution, don’t get one.
Yes, of course.
That was not psyopspec's point at all. He did not comment about lights at all.
His point, and it is well-taken, is that if someone does encounter people out-doors who appear potentially troublesome, one should not approach them.
Period. Ever.
The risks include injury or death, possible criminal charges, and potential incarceration. Once one has approached the persons, the likelihood of those risks is greater than zero, the potential consequences are very high, and the outcome will not be within the control of the defender from that point forward.
Even if the confrontation involves only the drawing of a gun, it is almost a certainty that the story provided by the several people will surely contradict that of the innocent citizen. That is not a good situation in which to be.
At that point, the defender will need to engage legal representation. Even if it does not go to trial, the expenses are likely to amount to tens of thousands of dollars. And there is absolutely no guarantee that it will stop there.
Over the last decade or so, we have had a number of discussions here about persons who headed out to investigate something and were seriously injured, or convicted of serious crimes.
Again, none of that has anything at all to do with lights.
That’s pretty much a no brainer conclusion.
Not a lot of value.
Which again is just a lot of words to avoid coming to the conclusion that weapon mounted lights are advantageous in some situations.
Exactly.
Why they’re inserted in this thread is beyond me.
I don't understand. You posed the scenario. Do you now agree that it did not represent sound strategy?
I hope so.
How so?
This thread is about weapon mounted lights.
A guy checking to see if a tarp has come loose so that his property doesn’t get wet from the rain doesn’t “represent sound strategy”?
He didn’t hear anyone out there. No loud party. Nothing. Didn’t hear anyone at all.
Are you suggesting that people call in a Swat team every time they need to check a tarp?
Lol.
More words to avoid coming to obvious conclusions about lights.
Might want to check out a low light training course.
You just said admitted his comments had nothing to do with lights.
That wouldn't pose a problem.
Then what's the issue?
Of course not!
What psyopspec referred to was this:
At that point, "about face". Get away from them.
How so?
You don’t have much experience with gangs, gang members or that mentality do you? I mean first hand actual experience.
In some situations a victim will enter a situation where gang members are at. In a building through a door, around a corner or in some other setting where they’re not spotted and easily avoided. For the purposes of increasing their stature within the gang some of the gang will begin to “clown” the victim while others block their avenue of retreat. The clowning will eventually turn into an assault and then the victim will then be stomped out and usually robbed.
I’ve actually seen this in person several times. A couple times as a child and a couple as an adult.
Their avenue of escape is blocked. That’s what happened with my neighbor.
So while it sounds great in theory to say on the net that you’ll always retreat or always do this or always do that it doesn’t always work out like that. People often like to try to point out why things can’t happen to them. They live in a “nice neighborhood” (“just move”), they possess some special skill, they carry some piece of equipment or they’d do this or that and stop everything in its tracks.
Often times you can retreat and leave the area and it’s a good idea to keep in mind and if you can retreat from trouble it’s certainly a good general policy to have, but then we’re not really talking about using weapon mounted lights on pistols outside the home as a positive feature again.
I guess that’s kind of the idea though right?
In some situations a victim will enter a situation where gang members are at. In a building through a door, around a corner or in some other setting where they’re not spotted and easily avoided. For the purposes of increasing their stature within the gang some of the gang will begin to “clown” the victim while others block their avenue of retreat. The clowning will eventually turn into an assault and then the victim will then be stomped out and usually robbed.
I’ve actually seen this in person several times. A couple times as a child and a couple as an adult.
Their avenue of escape is blocked. That’s what happened with my neighbor.
So while it sounds great in theory to say on the net that you’ll always retreat or always do this or always do that it doesn’t always work out like that. People often like to try to point out why things can’t happen to them. They live in a “nice neighborhood” (“just move”), they possess some special skill, they carry some piece of equipment or they’d do this or that and stop everything in its tracks.
Often times you can retreat and leave the area and it’s a good idea to keep in mind and if you can retreat from trouble it’s certainly a good general policy to have, but then we’re not really talking about using weapon mounted lights on pistols outside the home as a positive feature again.
I guess that’s kind of the idea though right?
How did you get that from my post? What I wrote has nothing to do with that or the price of tea in China. You’re welcome to get as defensive as you like, but I have no disagreement with you vis-à-vis the topic of weapon mounted lights.
I find the scenario with your neighbor a curious one and lacking sufficient detail to get my head around. No big deal though. Have a blessed Memorial Day.
Part of it was too you, part of it was to Kleanbore.
I’m actually not getting defensive, pretty blase about it. It’s just strange to me that he has these opinions that aren’t really fully formed.
I’d rather be hearing about light techniques from FL-NC or Jeff White than talking about this stuff. Might be stuff I already know, might be some variation on it though.
As it is not much to be learned the way things are going. The topic is being led by someone who doesn’t even use a weapon mounted light and doesn’t think they have a place outdoors, so I’ll just kill notifications.
It happened in the 80’s when I was a teenager. I grew up in Los Angeles. My mom’s neighborhood was great, my dads not so much. This happened in my dad’s neighborhood.
That neighbor was on the other side of us and his house was right next to a section 8 apt complex. He had a large fence and a grated gate. Couldn’t see though it too well. Mostly gangsters from that apt complex hung out inside the complex, on this particular night they were camped out on the wall separating the two properties getting high and drinking forty ounces. As soon as he went to check out his truck through that gate he ran smack into them and things went south pretty quick. He wasn’t an aggressive guy and he said he didn’t say anything rude or disrespectful to them. I believe him.
Older guy, not very big, no tats, white guy, alone and probably looked like a low risk target that they could mess with.
Maybe 6-8 gangsters, that gang was mostly Mexican. Older teens and early twenties. He got beat up some and stabbed and a couple of them got shot. One of the guys and one of their girlfriends. Bad lighting. I’m pretty sure the chick got shot by mistake. Who knows.
Nobody died. There was some talk of him getting charged. Nothing ended up coming of it IIRC.
A light might’ve saved her from getting lit up.
I have a couple personal experiences along the same lines, but nothing I really wanted to throw out there. I remembered that one pretty well simply because I was younger and the fact that he could potentially get charged by the police for protecting himself made a big impression on me.
You too
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Recapping here:
Tom Givens, who has much more relevant tactical knowledge than I have, does not recommend WMLs for civilians.
Jeff White, who has much more relevant tactical knowledge than I have, offers a different opinion, for those who are trained and who also carry hand held lights.
My personal needs--uninterruptible indoor lighting, street-lamps and light from houses out doors, and the fact hat we rarely go out and night--indicate against having to mount a light on my handgun
Buzznrose recounted a real scenario in which one would have a reqal need for good lights, and in which an WML would be a very good thing to have.
The discussions led the staff to rewrite one of our Sticky posts.
And finally, though off the original topic, we are again reminded to avoid the dangers inherent tin investigating bumps in the night in such a way that may expose us to unnecessary physical and legal risks.
Again, this has been a very useful discussion.
Tom Givens, who has much more relevant tactical knowledge than I have, does not recommend WMLs for civilians.
Jeff White, who has much more relevant tactical knowledge than I have, offers a different opinion, for those who are trained and who also carry hand held lights.
My personal needs--uninterruptible indoor lighting, street-lamps and light from houses out doors, and the fact hat we rarely go out and night--indicate against having to mount a light on my handgun
Buzznrose recounted a real scenario in which one would have a reqal need for good lights, and in which an WML would be a very good thing to have.
The discussions led the staff to rewrite one of our Sticky posts.
And finally, though off the original topic, we are again reminded to avoid the dangers inherent tin investigating bumps in the night in such a way that may expose us to unnecessary physical and legal risks.
Again, this has been a very useful discussion.
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