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Probably asked a hundred times but how import is a light on your home defense gun? What do you run? My house isn't too big and we all sleep upstairs. I generally leave the kitchen light on and it gives me a view of the bottom of the stairs. We're new to the area and if someone is in our house we know they don't belong. I don't see how a light is a must but I have one anyway.

Everyone will have their own preference, but I keep my light separate from my gun. The downside of having a light on your weapon is it lets the bad guy know exactly where you are at and gives them a target to shoot at if armed. But if you are able to turn your light on and off while maintaining your muzzle direction and the ability to fire quickly you may prefer to have a light on it.

Let me add the reason I do this is that in our church security team training we have practiced clearing a building in the dark and use our flashlights sparingly and briefly and then move to cover or concealment quickly since we just revealed our position.

I don't have on attached to my pistol. I carry one on me as part of my every day stuff. I keep flashlights all over the house. I got a couple next to the bed, bathroom, desks, little table I drop my stuff on by the door, next to the couch, kitchen, etc. Probably never more than 4 feet away from a flashlight in my house. Then also keep candles and lighters in the closet in case need long term light. I personally don't want a light stuck to my pistol, because I'd like to be able to put light on someone without point my pistol at them if necessary. Long gun is different because difficult to run one and a flashlight at the same time if they aren't attached.

rtschl wrote:Everyone will have their own preference, but I keep my light separate from my gun. The downside of having a light on your weapon is it lets the bad guy know exactly where you are at and gives them a target to shoot at if armed. But if you are able to turn your light on and off while maintaining your muzzle direction and the ability to fire quickly you may prefer to have a light on it.

Let me add the reason I do this is that in our church security team training we have practiced clearing a building in the dark and use our flashlights sparingly and briefly and then move to cover or concealment quickly since we just revealed our position.

See this is how I feel. I carry a flashlight on my person for EDC. I don't want it on my gun for obvious reasons. I also feel like as a civilian not on duty as a cop or security officer I don't need one attached to my gun. As a civilian if I'm an drawing my gun I'm shooting and looking at statistics the subject will be very close. If he's not so close that I can see him it probably isn't a self defense shoot and even so I carry a light.

I just follow a group on facebook and they believe its a life or death decision to put a light on a gun. Their view is it has to be on your gun at all times even for civilian EDC.

While I understand the concern of giving away your position, you should go to a pitch black environment and try shooting accurately at 10 yards while holding a flashlight with your support hand. Now add the stress of it being an actual deadly encounter.

This is extremely difficult to do well, even for people that train often. I can guarantee the results of the above experiment will be eye opening at the very least.

I use a Streamlight TLR-1 on my EDC and a TLR-2 (with laser) on my bedside weapon. The HL versions are too powerful for indoor use, they will blind you in confined spaces.

The training technique we use to diminish the effect of giving your position away is to only activate the light when on your threat, assess the situation and fire if needed, follow through to ensure the threat is stopped, and turn the light off while shifting your position to move from where you fired the light. This is done quickly and will greatly diminish the fact that you gave away your position with the light.

I know that this thread is about lights on guns, but do any of you use indoor motion detectors? I see these in conference rooms at the office and have thought about putting them in specific parts of our house. I.e. near back doors, front hall ways. Areas where an intruder might try to gain entry.

Target identification is a must. In the dark, the only way to do that is with a light. That light source must be portable.

For weapon lighting, every fighting handgun, rifle or shotgun has a weapon mounted light as well as several handheld tactical flashlights around for use with revolvers or general use.

A handheld tactical light is part of my EDC/CC since I don't want to have to pull my gun out every time I need to use my light in public and it makes my gun easier to conceal and is more comfortable than with a dedicated weapon mounted light.

I think weapon mounted lights are the way to go for HD. I can easily illuminate a room with out having to point a gun at anyone, just point up and the whole room lights up. Having and extra free hand gives you an advantage.I think having adequate indoor/outdoor home lighting should be part of a multilayered approach to home defense.

For home lighting I have lighting at the front (85W Halogen) and back door (60 W incandescent) , using the yellow "bug" lights. They are not as bright as clear light but they are effective at reducing the bugs the lights attract.

I also use timers so they come on when I'm away and also leave the light on in our hallway for the kids and since you can see it through the frosted glass window in the front door.

You can get hookup lamps to timer outlets you can get at home depot to simulate someone being home with various lights going on and off at different times.

We have a street light at the edge of our front yard and it helps illuminate the front of the house also.

Our house is one of the only house's to have any kind of outside security lighting on in on my street and neighborhood. Every place else is dark.

Dad24GreatKids wrote:I know that this thread is about lights on guns, but do any of you use indoor motion detectors? I see these in conference rooms at the office and have thought about putting them in specific parts of our house. I.e. near back doors, front hall ways. Areas where an intruder might try to gain entry.

I have motion-activated high intensity LED lighting outside by all normal access points of the house as well as the darker areas between houses where someone might lurk. It provides automatic welcome lighting for family and friends and discourages others from being in areas they should not go.

Plus, the light is bright enough I can usually see it through the blinds once it is dark outside. That alerts me that something is moving around outside in that area....

For a HD weapon that you intend to use for things that go "yo homie" in the night, a light is not an optional accessory.

It is your choice as to whether or not they will be mounted or hand held. I have both. Just because you have a light on your pistol / rifle / shotgun does not mean that you HAVE to use it. You can use a handheld for all of the reasons that the "handheld only" folks say a mounted light is a bad idea... and then you have the ability use the clearly superior mounted light as well. No matter what, there is absolutely zero reason not to have a mounted light on every projectile weapon that you own. How and when you use that light will be situational.

I have a pistol with a light in the nightstand... but my go to is a 16" AR with an Aimpoint and TLR-1 pistol light mounted on the quad rail.

AJSully421 wrote:For a HD weapon that you intend to use for things that go "yo homie" in the night, a light is not an optional accessory.

It is your choice as to whether or not they will be mounted or hand held. I have both. Just because you have a light on your pistol / rifle / shotgun does not mean that you HAVE to use it. You can use a handheld for all of the reasons that the "handheld only" folks say a mounted light is a bad idea... and then you have the ability use the clearly superior mounted light as well. No matter what, there is absolutely zero reason not to have a mounted light on every projectile weapon that you own. How and when you use that light will be situational.

I have a pistol with a light in the nightstand... but my go to is a 16" AR with an Aimpoint and TLR-1 pistol light mounted on the quad rail.

I disagree with your statement in red above. A mounted light (or even a rail) spoils the beautiful lines of a 1911.

Pawpaw wrote:

AJSully421 wrote:For a HD weapon that you intend to use for things that go "yo homie" in the night, a light is not an optional accessory.

It is your choice as to whether or not they will be mounted or hand held. I have both. Just because you have a light on your pistol / rifle / shotgun does not mean that you HAVE to use it. You can use a handheld for all of the reasons that the "handheld only" folks say a mounted light is a bad idea... and then you have the ability use the clearly superior mounted light as well. No matter what, there is absolutely zero reason not to have a mounted light on every projectile weapon that you own. How and when you use that light will be situational.

I have a pistol with a light in the nightstand... but my go to is a 16" AR with an Aimpoint and TLR-1 pistol light mounted on the quad rail.

I disagree with your statement in red above. A mounted light (or even a rail) spoils the beautiful lines of a 1911.

Form versus function... the age old quandary.

I am very leery of assigning two functions to my trigger/gun hand, e.g. using a handgun-mounted light to illuminate a room by reflected light. It feels like I am setting myself up for a crossed-wires boo-boo, like where the cop inadvertently shoots a guy with a gun when he meant to use his taser. Except I don't have have to draw, just press the wrong button.

If I did keep a light on my handgun, it would be solely for last milli-second target ID, where I've already decided what the target it and the muzzle is on oriented on it.

Much prefer sticking to light in one hand to illuminate, gun in the other to shoot. I didn't find this too difficult to do. Even I put a light on my gun, I will still use a hand-held light to search with.

TVGuy wrote:While I understand the concern of giving away your position, you should go to a pitch black environment and try shooting accurately at 10 yards while holding a flashlight with your support hand. Now add the stress of it being an actual deadly encounter.

This is extremely difficult to do well, even for people that train often. I can guarantee the results of the above experiment will be eye opening at the very least.

I use a Streamlight TLR-1 on my EDC and a TLR-2 (with laser) on my bedside weapon. The HL versions are too powerful for indoor use, they will blind you in confined spaces.

The training technique we use to diminish the effect of giving your position away is to only activate the light when on your threat, assess the situation and fire if needed, follow through to ensure the threat is stopped, and turn the light off while shifting your position to move from where you fired the light. This is done quickly and will greatly diminish the fact that you gave away your position with the light.

yes, the streamlight and surefire lights are very easy to flick on or off with minimal effort. I keep a surefire x300 on my HD and its very easy to hold and manipulate the controls if needed.

I also have an TLR-1S that i intend to use at some point, I like the ability to strobe and disorient someone

Yup Surefire here also. 6PX Tactical, so pushing the button is momentary on only. Don't have to working about clicking twice for high beam, once for low beam, etc. If I'm pushing it is on, if I'm not it isn't. Definitely agree with TVGuy on one thing though. You should shoot with the flashlight in as dark as you can get it. I try to hit the range on off hours sometimes so I can turn out all the lights and shoot in the dimness, never goes pitch black. It widens my groups up for sure. I've also gone around the house at night with everything off with my light. So I can see what it'll look like. I need to get a set of electronic earmuffs to hang next to the bed also. No telling how long I'd be deaf shooting in a house.