If you’ve taken one of my classes or read enough of my articles, you know how emphatically I remind people that someone they perceive to be a stranger in their home might, in any number of scenarios, be an innocent party with every right to be there. Please read this article, brought to my attention by my good friend and ace instructor Greg Ellifretz.

And remember, when you search with a weapon-mounted light, you’re pointing a deadly weapon at everything you look at.

11 COMMENTS

  1. Mas, I once came home early from work (after dark) without calling Bonnie to let her know. When she heard a key in the lock, she armed herself, and asked “who’s there?”. I called out that it was just me (my usual response), and she stood back and let me in. Never pointed the gun at me, kept it down by her leg – but I ALWAYS called ahead when coming home early after that. I trusted her judgment then, and still do. Seeing her with her Kimber .45 1911 in her hand as I came in the door got my attention, as well it should. Never made that mistake again!

  2. Old School. No weapon mounted lights. Be careful at what you aim at. No spray & pray. Every bullet has an attorney or a DA attached to it.

  3. We live in a more rural setting and, with cellphones being unreliable, have taken to using two-way radios for communications. No matter where anyone is, on or off the property, they always have a radio on them. It’s interesting what this does to increase the frequency of communications between people and the situational awareness of where everyone is.

    In addition to that all the doors have been replaced and managed like a commercial building; metal doors, automatic door closers, and latches that always automatically lock behind you (“storeroom function”). Lighting in common areas is on motion sensors, similar to commercial offices. Most of this is to suit our own life and convenience, but with substantial security benefits as well.

    We would still need to keep in mind the prospect of a mistaken identity shooting, but I think that with everyone who is authorized to be here being in communication and with proper access control and visibility in the building, that risk and others are substantially mitigated.

  4. I have a Streamlight weapon mounted TLR-7-HL-X on my primary carry pistol. It can be set for 500 or 1000 lumens, with an instant or constant on/off switch (I prefer 500 lumens). From a low ready or compressed low ready it lights up a room enough to identify a face, even though it is pointing at the floor a few feet ahead of me. Even so, I keep a different flashlight on my person to use for target identification, because I was taught that was the best practice for target ID.

  5. In an exercise, I “shot down” a friendly aircraft (by firing off a Very pistol). The pilots were not amused. My CO asked me if I had ever heard the Simon and Garfunkel song “The Boxer.” I said yes and I was puzzled.

    He told me that there is a line in the song that “a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest”. He told me that I expected to see an enemy aircraft and that I saw what I thought I would see and that, in a hot war, people were always going to get killed that way. He told me the real trick was to be able to make fast decisions and yet be alert enough to question myself to make reasonably certain that I really knew what was going on.

    I don’t see the home defense thing as being different. If you expect to see an intruder, that’s what you’ll likely see.

  6. Needing to sign in is something of a turnoff for me. However, since Mas mentioned weapon mounted lights…..

    I spent a lot of time training and working in reduced light/dark, including a stint on a dedicated adversary team doing graded response exercises. Simply, you can’t learn reduced light tactics reading an article/book or watching a video. You definitely don’t want to try to learn it in a live fire event! It’s your house, turn the cotton picking lights on.

    Having said all that, there’s a lot of helpful tips in the March, 2022 Rangemaster newsletter (rangemaster.com). No way that replaces actual low light training.

    • The reference above to “The Boxer” triggered a memory that has a lot of application to the “common knowledge” about reduced light tactics. These are the lines just before the quote above: “I have squandered my resistance (future?), for a pocketful of mumbles, such are promises, all lies and jest(s?), still, a man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest.”

      If you have a trusted-and suitable- friend or family member to role play, you’ll learn a lot more as the adversary-if you can make the change in your mental mindset.

      Ms Belser does make an important point. To use the safety motto, you should have a questioning attitude……while still being prepared for the worst and maintaining muzzle discipline.

  7. I have found that handheld lights interfere with red dots. Perhaps I need more work with the red dot (It is new) but so far finding the dot seems dependent on doing the presentation in exactly the same way every time. The presentation is different with a light. Tentative solution is to use the handheld on a lanyard if I need to search and then drop it and use the weapon light for target illumination.

    Since I am not regularly out and about after dark, main use for light is inside the house. I live alone and keep doors locked so that eliminates a lot of the mistaken identity scenarios.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here