Weapon-mounted lights (WMLs) — which are white-light units designed to attach to a firearm — have become one of the most popular accessories in the industry.
Sales tip: Folks are more likely to buy a product when sellers explain the lifesaving features it can offer, and WMLs offer a number of advantages.
WMLs help in identifying a threat. There have been tragedies when an alarmed homeowner woke up, grabbed his gun and shot at a shadowy figure looming in the darkness — only to discover he had shot a member of his own household. A WML bathes the potential target with bright white light, which provides facial identification. This makes it more likely the shooter will be able to tell a keychain in the other person’s hand from a gun or a knife. So, the WML has huge potential for preventing tragedy.
WMLs also greatly increase accuracy. If you have a range attached to your shop and rent out guns, put a light-equipped pistol in the rental rack. Many of your customers have pistols with light rails, but no lights; consider having a rental WML available. If lighting can be reduced at the shooting booth, you’ll be able to show the customer the dramatic improvement that gun-attached white light delivers.
If you don’t have a range, ask your customer to point the empty gun in a safe direction, turn on the WML and align the sights in the beam as it hits the wall. In a well-lit shop, the wall will need to be close so they can see what you’re trying to show them. Now, remove the light, hand them a handheld flashlight, and let them try to coordinate with the pistol in strong-hand and flashlight in weak-hand. They’ll see a profound difference — which favors the WML. When the light is on the gun, both hands can be dedicated to a two-hand hold, providing added stability.
WMLs also provide a “stand-off” effect. While talking with a customer, ask what semiauto he or she owns and take out a similar model from the showcase (also confirming it’s unloaded for both of you). While holding the pistol in a firing grip, press the muzzle against a safe surface and pull the trigger. The expected “click” won’t happen on most, because they’ll have been pushed out of battery. In a real fight for life, that would have been a gun unable to fire. Now, slip a standard size light onto the rail, and demonstrate again: The light will hold the muzzle back, allowing the pistol to “click” now in the shop, and fire in the same situation “on the street.”
A variety of holster makers offer models compatible with WMLs,
Stock Lights For A Variety Of Uses
Crimson Trace, Glock, Insight, Streamlight and SureFire are among the top-selling pistol light brands. For a home-defense gun, a holster isn’t usually a consideration, and a bigger, brighter light may be more logical in some cases. Several of these brands are available with laser sights combined with white light; the user can employ the white beam in tandem with the red dot or selectively utilize one or the other. Most units with combined capability will be larger and more expensive than laser-only or light-only units.
For concealed carry, we now have holsters able to fit a standard WML with a full-size or compact service-caliber pistol. Concealment Solutions makes their Black Mamba in this configuration as an IWB holster, and it very comfortably and effectively conceals my full-size Glocks with a SureFire X200 light. Galco, Safariland and many more make holsters worth looking at, usually in OWB style.
For those who want something smaller, Crimson Trace offers the compact Lightguard, which as the name implies, attaches to the front of the triggerguard. While it still needs a special holster — also available from Crimson Trace — it’s the lowest-profile white-light unit I’ve seen. Given its small size, of course, it’s not as powerful as their own RailMasterPro, which, also as the name implies, slips onto dust cover accessory rails. The latter employs laser sighting as well as white light.
Don’t forget rifles and shotguns. The standard pistol lights mentioned above will fit on the Picatinny rails of AR-15s or other tactical-style long guns. There’s also a myriad of dedicated long-gun lights. Of particular interest are SureFire’s WeaponLights, which are crafted as the fore-end of a shotgun or as a forward pistol grip for an AR, and the Mako Group’s combination foregrip/bipod/flashlight.
Safety Features Of Handheld Lights
You owe the customer a warning: If a WML is used for searching out danger, it means a loaded gun is pointing at everything they look at. A “threat” could turn out to be a member of the household or even a police officer responding to a burglar alarm. Even if no shot is fired, there likely won’t be a good outcome.
Therefore, I advise students to purchase a separate handheld white light for inspecting. Once they’ve found the threat, they can drop it and go to the light on the gun as they take an identified criminal suspect at gunpoint. It’s not about selling an additional light; it’s about safety.
Your customers may have been told they can just point the beam at the floor and light spillover will let them find whoever made the “bump in the night.” True enough, but you can’t fool Mother Nature: As soon as a human figure is identified, instinct will want to see it better — and that white light is probably going to center mass.
I’ve found it useful to compare a WML to a scope on a hunting rifle. We’d all agree the slob hunter who scans for game with his riflescope is pointing his loaded gun irresponsibly; the same is largely true when searching with a WML.
But the magnification of that scope, when the hunter thought he did have a deer at dusk, has saved many people from being accidentally shot when they went into the woods wearing gray or brown. It’s likewise probable that countless people have been saved when a WML allowed the person behind the gun to identify the target before they pulled the trigger.
By Massad Ayoob
By Massad Ayoob
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