I always suggest that if you get the opportunity to practice or train in low light, that you do. It allows you the opportunity to confirm your dryfire flashlight work, confirm your techniques, and see what works and doesn’t when you’re actually shooting. This last weekend, I had the opportunity to get some range time at a private range in NW Georgia. I wanted to try out some of the small flashlights I have been collecting and make sure I’m not taking crazy pills when I say that 60 lumens is still enough. It was impromptu, so I didn’t have an elaborate testing plan. I would have set up something more thorough if I thought of it ahead of time.
Weather: light cloud cover which minimized moon light. The range was very dark.
With each light, I wanted to check the distance at which I could identify two inch numbers on a target, and the distance that I could see the targets themselves. I also got some shooting in at various distances and positions using a Shooting Solutions AR500 silhouette and a range barricade I built recently. It’s not scientific, but it doesn’t need to be. It’s about what I can see with my eyes and my lights. I’m happy if I can identify details (things in hands) at 7 yards or so.
This is the dinosaur of the bunch. It’s actually a good size. The light is that sort of dingy yellow when compared to the brilliance of the white LEDs. It was a good baseline for the other lights. I could readily read the numbers on a target out to about 15 feet, and see the target itself to about 40 feet.
The AAA streamlight was very bright when it came out several years ago. 30 lumens is lacking a bit, though. The ranges were (surprise) approximately halved when using 30 lumens. 15 feet for reading numbers, and 30 for seeing the target well enough to shoot. Considering the recent improvements in lights, I would pass on this one. We didn’t even get pictures of the beam on this one.
Docooler AAA light. I got this one for $8 last week just because 120 lumens seemed pretty awesome for $8. The beam is all ‘spill’. The light is evenly distributed with no real ‘hotspot’ in the center. The tail cap isn’t momentary. It clicks on and stays on. This isn’t preferred for a tactical light, but I didn’t have much trouble actuating it on the range. My wife’s worn out hair bungee makes a good finger loop so you can drop the light to manipulate your pistol. I could read numbers out to 20 feet or so, and see the target at 50 feet.
Streamlight AA Protac. This light is several years old and pretty beat up. The lense is scratched on mine. It’s actually a little long for my liking. Momentary with a slight push, and then will click on. A poor strobe feature isn’t that useful (compared to a Klarus strobe). This light has a more discernable hotspot so it was good for a few extra feet, 25 and 60. I think one could do better, and cheaper, currently.
Pelican 1920 2xAAA. This one continues to be my favorite. The diameter is close to a sharpie, and the length is great clipped into jeans or dropped into a pocket. It stays oriented pretty well in a pocket and one can get a good grip and cheek/neck index quickly. The beam (on high) was actually the winner despite its lower specified output. Both my friend and I agreed that this was the winner of the bunch. It fills the hand well, and could be used as a fist-load for striking, or you could hammerfist with it if you had to. I wish it were a single output, but it’s not that bad. It was similar to the Streamlight AA for me, but seemed just a touch brighter.
Some lights I want to try (apparently I’m scared of the dark):
Klarus XT1C – 245 lumens, 1xCR123 Get out and practice with your lights. For the urban or suburban gun person, these lights would serve your purposes. Easily carried in a pocket or purse, you can light up the dark corners of your life. If you live in the country and are surrounded by wide open spaces, you’ll need more light. All of these lights are perfect for lighting up a dark parking deck, looking around the house, walking the dog, and for shooting at defensive distances. No weapon meant for defensive purposes should be without a light nearby.
How often are you practicing not shooting your gun?
Before you close this article because “I practice not shooting all the time except when I’m at the range, hurr durr”, hear me out. We like to shoot. We spend lots of money and time on getting faster, competing, and shooting defense oriented drills. We want to draw fast and get that fast first hit. We practice rapid strings of fire to make sure we can rapidly stop a threat. We understand that the only time the gun should come out is when we will likely have to use it. But…
But life happens in the blink of an eye, and a situation can change in the time it takes to clear leather and drop the hammer. If all we’ve ever done in our shooting career is draw and shoot a known ‘threat’ target after a positive ID, and we realize we are creatures of habit, why should we expect to be able to halt the shot cycle before that round is fired? The VAST majority of defensive gun uses require no shooting. The introduction of a gun by the good guy and the apparent will to use it are enough to stop most criminal assaults.
This could also be the counterpoint to having to practice this. Since we are hesitant to actually shoot when it might be justified, maybe the problem will just take care of itself. I personally think practice is warranted, even if it is a very small portion of your practice.
If I’m ever asked in court, “Well, Mr. Mark, in all your years of gun training, have you ever practiced NOT shooting when gun comes out?” I’d like to be able to answer yes.
There are enough situations and real world examples that require the ability to be able to short-circuit the shooting cycle, either before the shooting starts, or after several shots.
When might we need to abort the shot, or shooting?
A sudden change of intent/ability/opportunity(jeopardy) by the bad guy upon seeing the gun presented. Verbalization and a show of force will probably solve most issues. But we shouldn’t assume this is the case. If we present the gun, we should only do so if we are certain we will need it. We have to consider several kinds of draws, too. A preemptive draw where you hear a bump in the night, or you draw to a low ready with a vehicle between you and the possible-shoot as you issue a verbal challenge. Or an emergency draw stroke, where there is an immediate need to shoot. All could require halting the shoot cycle or not shooting at different times, and for various reasons.
The foreground or background suddenly changes. If you realize your backstop is a playground, it would make sense to not shoot and change your orientation before shooting.
You have a righteous shoot, but then follow the injured bad guy and put one in his head for good measure. Then a good shoot becomes murder.
The pharmacist, 59-year-old Jerome Ersland, fired a weapon after two young men entered his pharmacy, one of them waving a gun, in May 2009. Mr. Ersland’s bullet hit 16-year-old Antwun Parker in the head, Oklahoma County prosecutors alleged.
Moments later, Mr. Ersland shot Mr. Parker five more times as he lay unconscious on the ground, say prosecutors who had a security surveillance video to bolster their case.
I’ve found several anecdotes from Police officers and private Citizens who were able to abort their shot in light of a changing situation, and seemed quite relieved that they didn’t have to take a life, though they were fully prepared to. Here’s one.
I will also say that you might be surprised how quickly things can change and what you are capable doing in a short amount of time in a dynamic, dangerous situation. I have made the decision to shoot someone, started pressing the trigger, and wound up not firing a single round. This happened not once, but twice in my short seven years in LE. From talking to other officers, my experience is not unique
There’s still, however, the need to train in how you actually decide not to shoot and how to use your gun when shooting isn’t (yet) a justified act. That’s what my students were doing: they were learning what to do with their guns when they didn’t need to shoot — and a little about why not shooting but still having their defensive firearm at the ready might be necessary. The stimuli were intentionally confusing, forcing them to think and requiring them to process the information I was giving them and making decisions about what to do based on their interpretation of that information.
Then you come to skills. This is assessing the given circumstances. How do you mix steering, accelerating and braking, given the circumstances you are in, whether you are coming around a corner or whether someone is merging into your lane. What is the appropriate response? What is the combo? Those are the skills.
Take that into a shooting situation. As I said, you are not even thinking about pulling the gun. Once you’re there, you’re going, “Do I have to shoot?” So all your brain cells are in “shoot or don’t shoot,” assessing the circumstances.
What is really important about this model is that we think this way all the time. As a situation changes, our reactions change. Let’s go back to driving: You’re processing how to get through the curve as you’re driving, but once you get out of that curve, you have to change your behaviors. You are constantly doing these calculations. So there, you’re pulling your gun, you’re getting ready, and all of a sudden the guy turns around and runs away. What’s the important thing to do right now?
It’s debatable about whether one should or should not point a gun at someone before they initiate the shooting cycle. In a perfect world the muzzle stays off someone literally until a pistol is driving up or to the target and the round breaks. Real life is not that clean and motor skills are driven by decision making that may be changing quarter second by quarter second.
GJM to answer your specific question ideally we don’t point guns at people before we shoot them and our ready positions support not muzzling people AND give us the ability to see and discriminate information about the person we might be shooting in a split second. Also whatever “ready” positon we use allows us to break a fast and accurate shot on a low probability target. So there are three things that a ready position should accomplish.
This gives rise to an approximation of the old and oversimplified adage ‘don’t draw the gun until you are going to fire immediately.’ There are situations where I might draw the gun and point it toward someone but not yet fire it, however, that span of situations is narrowed compared to what it might be in another state with a different legal situation.
When ready positions are legally weakened, the importance of a fast draw increases, but active awareness, and manipulation of environmental and interactive factors to allow us more time to evaluate the potential threat or give us additional or clearer information with which to evaluate the potential threat, or might even allow the luxury of disengagement, are still the most important (creating distance, using obstacles, adding artificial light, verbal interactive skills, recognition of threat cues, etc.)
It seems the majority of these incidents (either bad shoots or narrowly avoided shoots) are a matter of emotional control and data processing bandwidth (seeing more, and thinking faster) in the brain.
So how can we practice “not shooting”? Here’s a few ideas.
Train Force on Force. This is difficult to arrange, and usually only gets the average guy a few exposures to testing these decision making skills in a given course. The scenarios need to be well thought out, with possible ambiguous outcomes, and experienced role players. This is not easy to find. The more of this we do, the less brain-lock we’ll experience the next time (in training or for real).
Get a partner with a whistle, or a random par timer, and begin shooting a drill of your choice. When the random par timer beeps, halt shooting immediately. You are ceasing the firing sequence in light of new information. This can be done with courses of fire, or simple static range drills (Mr_White on PF described this)
Target Discrimination drills which will allow you to practice taking in auditory and visual information and processing it before shooting.
Threat management drills. These will engage your mind so you have to talk and coordinate the gun and possibly a flashlight, etc.
Incorporate it into dry-fire. It doesn’t have to be any significant portion of your time, but consider getting a full firing grip, issuing a challenge, and aborting. Or presenting the gun, touching the trigger, and then not pressing the trigger. Or present the gun, and depress the muzzle to a low ready. You get the idea.
This post sort of got out of hand in length. I don’t honestly know how much worth this has, but it feels important to me. There are legal and moral repercussions that have to be considered. Sometimes it’s hard being the good guy and having to care about the ramifications of our actions. It’s our burden. I hope I got someone thinking.
Protect the Brood and don’t shoot unless you have to.
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