Light Discipline

I was talking to someone the other day, and he was asking about putting a light on a handgun for home defense. I mentioned training and light discipline; more on that later.

If you are my age, you will remember the days of flashlights with dry cell batteries. There was no such thing as rechargeable anything, so the constant battle was having a flashlight, a portable radio, or any portable electronic device with a charged battery. You had to use restraint in overusing that flashlight, as it would not last long - light discipline. As a rookie cop back in Syracuse in 1976, when I was on patrol, I worked the night shift. A flashlight was an important tool, but you needed to use it sparingly and not to show yourself or give yourself away on a “hot” call at night, a new type of light discipline. Not a lot has changed; we are still reminded today about light discipline. Lights at night during turtle season come to mind; not driving around at night with your high beams on (PLEASE!) is another. But thinking about today's flashlights, how many different types there are now and the varied ways they can be used, I wondered if people realize just what they could be using this tool for. As self-defense, situational awareness and safety are a big part of what I like to discuss. Let's first look at flashlights for defense: the discipline of self-defense with a flashlight, if you will. In early June, Paul, the owner of Art Sellers Signs on Marco, called me. He had a nifty new flashlight, a flat pocket flashlight about 5” long that would fit in your pocket like a clip knife. This light had several modes, from a bright light on both the front and sides to a dimmer setting, and something that caught my attention: a strobe. Paul is selling the light with business owners' names and information on the side as a customer gift, another nifty idea. But that strobe feature, I have seen that on other larger lights. Billed as a self-defense tool, I never really embraced the idea. When Paul handed me the light, I immediately did what I called the “Guy Thing,” which usually involves something stupid. In this case, I turned on the strobe and looked directly at it. HOLY SMOKES!! Talk about losing all perspective on vision, balance, and awareness. This is a less-lethal tool I was holding in my hand; who would have thought? Kathie and I went to Europe in June to do a Normandy Beaches to Munich, Germany, Band of Brothers tour. I was worried about personal safety while in Europe, as I couldn’t carry my normal tools, not even a folding knife. So, if a threat occurred, the RUN, HIDE, FIGHT plan would be reduced to RUN! What better way to disorient a threat than to shine this strobe in his or her face? I borrowed that flashlight from Paul and carried it for 15 days on that trip. Thankfully, nothing bad happened, and we had a great trip, but that flashlight gave me confidence that at least I had a plan. I now have several of those lights for Kathie's pocketbook and our other family members. I like the idea of having a flashlight in all my vehicles: two cars and two boats, along with robust first aid kits. Looking at my favorite spot to research stuff, I turned to Amazon. I found that larger rechargeable flashlights and a good medium-sized light are inexpensive purchases. This is something everyone should consider: a good flashlight in their cars and boats. Plus, these lights come with that strobe feature. What a great self-defense tool against road rage and an attention-getter if you need help. Some also come with an SOS dash-dot feature, although I imagine no one under the age of 50 would recognize three dots, three dashes, and three dots.

But back to the beginning: putting a light on a gun for home defense, and the discipline and training that come with that. When I was with the Sheriff’s Office, we did have lights on our weapons. And, of course, we trained with that tool. The first problem is that you are violating one of the cardinal rules of gun safety: never point a firearm at anything you are unwilling to destroy. I.E., all guns are always loaded, and you don’t point guns at anything you’re not prepared to shoot. Every time you are looking with that light, that gun is pointing at it too. The second problem is that the light at the end of your gun shows the bad guy exactly where you are and probably your center mass. The FBI, at one time, prescribed that you hold your flashlight as high as you could over your head in your weak hand, say in my case up at 11 o'clock, while you held your gun out in front of you. That way, the bad guy would shoot at the light, way up there! Thankfully, that one went away. The answer: your finger is never on the trigger until you are going to shoot the gun, NEVER! Reinforce that training at the range and, with an UNLOADED gun, practice turning the light quickly on and off when you only want a brief look at what is in front of you, light discipline, and dry firing with the light on.

Another area of light discipline is on your boat at night. Coming into the Marco River at night, you will have to pass several unlit day markers. These triangle or square markers on pilings are not lit. You need to use your spotlight or flashlight to spot these. Proper use of your spotlight is number one, making sure you do not light up another boat and ruin the night vision of everyone on that boat, and number two, using brief on and off moments of light to spot the marker or any other unlit object, note its location, and turn the spotlight off. Running your spotlight out in front of your bow, like you’re driving down I-75, is not the way to practice light discipline. And for safety, to all you bikers out there, the pedal kind, you just can’t have enough red blinkers on the back and white on the front of your bike while riding our bike paths. I remember what Matt Walthour, the owner of the Island Bike Shop on Bald Eagle, once told me. When he rides, he said, “I tell people that I am lit up like Studio 54, unfortunately, not many people get the reference”.

Really, there are many ways we can and should use flashlights and spotlights at night. Consider all the flashlights available, all their uses, and embrace putting more of them into your everyday life. Oh, and again, please turn off your high beams; light discipline. :-).