Tag: flashlight

The Keychain Flashlight and OC Combo

I’ll go on a limb and say you have people in your life who you love and who don’t want to be victimized, but they won’t carry a pistol (or pocket a flashlight, or Pepper Spray, or a knife, or Medical gear, etc). What do you do for these people? Explain their inevitable victimization in a WalMart parking lot and wish them luck? Write them off because they have a different moral compass, or because they’re lazy, or have a different lifestyle that precludes being inconvenienced by extra ‘stuff’? Would you write off your family if they wouldn’t follow this path exactly as you have?

I hope not. I hope you treat your friends, families, and clients as individuals and respect their lifestyle and moral decisions. I have several of these in my life (most of my people in meat-space in fact) who either can’t be bothered, lack the confidence in their skills, or are too lazy to carry a firearm or individual self defense tools. Even if I can get them to drop a light and OC in their purse, I know for a fact that they don’t have both of them out while they push their shopping cart through a dark parking lot.

I couldn’t write my people off because I was dealing with my mom, sister, and wife. They all understand and practice ‘mindset’ skills like avoiding task fixation in public, identifying alternate emergency exits, work M.U.C. skills in roll play to preserve space and get deselected, watch hands, and on and on. I only mention it to prevent someone saying, “No tool in an unwilling person’s hands will do a bit of good.” My girls have that.

I have two paths I can follow: Convince them to organize their life around cumbersome gear, or use clever gear to make it so they don’t have a choice. The first option requires that several things line up in a way that I’ve failed to do in 13 years or so. The latter only needs me to find the right gear that meets my needs of effective, reliable, and usable.

The Ideal Tactic (as I see it)

As you are about to push your cart out of the front doors, stop and:

  • Get your keys out of your purse/pocket
  • In your off-hand, palm your self defense light
  • In your strong hand, palm your Sabre Red Pepper Spray (OC)
  • Look out through the front glass to observe the space you’re about to enter
  • walk out the doors, and do a 3-5 second halt to scan the parking lot and along the building to the corners
  • Proceed to car, look into the car  and around the car
  • Load Groceries, taking a break every few bags to lift their head and do a quick scan to see who’s new, and where people are moving
  • Return cart to corral
  • Get in car, start car without delay, and get in drive (no instagram updates)

The Compromise

So that’s basically fantasy land for me. So I’ll use cunning to not give them a choice about having their tools at hand. Here’s my current best solution for my people:

  • The NITECORE TINI 380 Lumens. Rechargeable, Bright, Keyfob light. A super floody light that is only just bigger than those little disposable pinch LEDs. It’s not combat grade, but it’s not cumbersome and puts out enough light to see hands and beltlines at WalMart parking lot distances. It’s also $30.

  • The Sabre Red Gel key chain flip-top unit with inert trainer and target. This give you a robust and more leak-proof flip-top thumb activated unit in a key-chain size. It’s a bit bigger than those spitfire units that are now discontinued, but the spray quality is much higher on this unit. Sabre Red is HOT at 1.33% MCC (more on OC here). The Gel formulation has its advantage in semi-confined space like vehicles, or in buildings where you don’t want to flood an HVAC system with aerosol pepper spray. It takes a little longer to start burning, and can’t be aspirated as easily, but it still has a place. They also make stream configurations in this package, which I’m interested in.

PRoblem solved, problem staying solved

Now we’ve attached a seeing tool, with a force option, with the keys. We spent less than $50. If we can convince them to dig this mess out before they leave the store, there is no reason to be task fixated digging for keys in front of a locked car, there won’t be a panic at someone emerging from a dark corner to cause trouble, and there will be an option to take away an aggressor’s will to fight by impairing their vision and breathing. That’s enough to make the bad guys look for greener pastures. That’s a win.

Training

The great thing about the Live/Inert combo pack I linked above, is that it gives you a paper target to practice with the inert spray. So take your loved one through some basic MUC exercises. Practice footwork, the fence hand posture, verbalization and their verbal tape-loop, up to painting the guy orange. They get a feel for realistic range and the need to aim and how to aim.

How to convince them to buy?

Sometimes you can’t. I’ve been slowly outfitting my family with useful self defense skills and items. When it’s my birthday, I often give my family a shopping list of useful items I want them to buy for themselves as my present. This is the only way I can get them to invest some money in this stuff. Otherwise I just buy gear for them when they’re in town.

Mother’s day is coming up and it might be worth outfitting your mom and/or wife with something other than a card and some chocolate.

PS: These are the same principles I use, but with a handheld light and key-chain OC. Gun folks should have intermediate force options as well.

Thanks for taking the time to check in,

Mark

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Remember When 60 Lumens Was Enough?

This won’t be a long winded post, like they usually are. Someone recently asked what flashlight I carry, because he was getting tired of having a 6 inch roll of quarters sized Surefire G2X Tactical in his pocket every day. I gave him a quick answer, but it got me thinking about what we gun-totin’ parents and average folks need in a flashlight.

My training in flashlight use consists of short modules in several pistol classes and one where flashlight technique was a huge portion. Shivworks A.M.I.S. (a must take), Armed Dynamics Pistol 1, Paul Gomez and Claude Werner impromptu tutorials and a few local classes. Not a lot, but probably enough for my needs. That and a lot of home practice. So turn back now if that’s not enough for me to have an opinion.

LED flashlights have spoiled us. Remember when 60 lumens in a xenon G2 was plenty for a defensive light?  It needed 2 CR123’s and is the same size as the G2X noted above. It would allow us to identify threats, light our sights, and fill the room with enough light for what we needed…60 lumens.

We live in a golden age of LED technology as they get smaller and brighter and cheaper. The tactical/LEO/MIL guys, rightly so, are screaming they want “All The Lumenz!!!”. When I’m out with my family, I’m not that guy. I just need enough lumens.

My needs in a handheld:

  • Ability for momentary on with a tail button
  • Bright enough to identify people/critters/trip hazards/dropped keys at 15 yards or so. Let’s say 50-100 lumens
  • Bright enough to identify what’s in someone’s hands at 5 yards or so
  • Size envelope that doesn’t require me to wear the baggy 5.11 style pants to fit the light in my pocket. My wife likes me in jeans. This matters.
  • Readily available batteries, since it’s also getting used in a utility role.
  • Price point less than $50, because I lose pocket lights like it’s my job.

That’s pretty much it.

Here’s some lights that I have bought and carried in the last few years:

All I’m saying is, let’s remember what we need and keep the context clear. I need to be willing to carry my light first and foremost. Are there gripes with the above lights? Yes of course. I wish they’d be single mode, momentary push/twist on. But, I don’t want to have to wear suspenders to keep my pants up with my every day carry stuff, so I make due. 60 lumens used to be enough. For my current needs, it still works just fine. Your mileage may vary.