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Pistol Lights: The Pros & Cons of a Weapon Light for Concealed Carry

Pistol Lights: The Pros & Cons of a Weapon Light for Concealed Carry

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Here's a shocking revelation: it's dark outside 50% of the time. Every day between sunset and sunrise, low-light conditions make it harder to see, and being unable to see makes everything we do more difficult. This is why humans harnessed the power of fire — and later, electricity — to keep the darkness at bay and deter predators (both four-legged and two-legged) from using it to their advantage. Our homes have lamps, our vehicles have headlights, and many of us carry flashlights in our pockets. But what about our concealed carry pistols? In this article, we're taking a look at weapon-mounted pistol lights and their pros and cons.

Crime After Dark: Some Useful Statistics

In general, most crime occurs during the daytime, since overall crime statistics correlate with normal human activity patterns (i.e. the times most people are awake). However, according to an analysis of the FBI's Open City Crime Data in 10 major American cities, violent crimes are more frequent at night. The following types of crime all increase under the cover of darkness:

  • Murder and Nonnegligent Manslaughter - 65% committed at night
  • Rape/Sexual Assault - 59% committed at night
  • Robbery - 56% committed at night
  • Aggravated Assault - 54% committed at night

If you carry a concealed pistol for self defense, these are the types of crime you're more likely to face after dark. Have you trained and planned for these scenarios? If you only practice shooting during the day, you may not be adequately prepared to defend yourself during a violent altercation in a dimly-lit parking lot or dark path.

The Importance of Target Identification & "PID"

In any self-defense situation — day or night — it is critical to be able to positively identify (PID) what you're shooting at. Not only is this one of the fundamental rules of gun safety ("know your target and what is beyond"), it's also common sense. If you can't see your target clearly due to darkness or any other visual obstruction, you probably can't justify shooting it, and you're certainly going to have a harder time explaining your decision in front of a jury.

Above: Intermittent lighting in urban environments creates plenty of opportunites for hiding in the shadows. (Photo by Erean at Morguefile.com)

Jacob Paulsen of ConcealedCarry.com explains: "It can be difficult to identify your threat in the dark, but in the light not as much so. It is fully irresponsible and dangerous to fire at a target you have not yet been able to identify. So use a light."

A pistol light gives us improved PID capability to identify threats, but it also allows us to identify when someone is not a threat. It's entirely possible that the noise you heard go "bump" in the night was one of your loved ones, not a burglar entering your home. Using a light for proper target identification can help avoid tragic headlines like these:

What About Handheld Flashlights?

Photo courtesy of Recoil Magazine

One common response to this discussion is "just carry a flashlight in your pocket!" That's definitely a good idea — personally, I carry a flashlight every day, and also have a second flashlight in my truck — but there's more to it than that.

Above: A handheld flashlight like this Cloud Defensive MCH makes a great addition to your everyday carry gear. (Pictured alongside LAS Kaizen-L holster, Enso mag carrier, Spartan Harsey folding knife, and Staccato C24 pistol.)

Handheld flashlights are extremely useful for a wide range of tasks, especially for those where you don't need to point a gun at whatever you're illuminating. However, when you do need to point a gun and potentially fire it multiple times, you'll ideally want both hands on the weapon for improved stability and recoil control. That's not easy with a flashlight in one hand! Additionally, if you need to reload or clear a malfunction, you may struggle with a fistful of flashlight, especially if you've never practiced doing so.

Weapon-mounted lights eliminate the manual dexterity challenges of holding/aiming a handheld flashlight while you shoot. In a high-stress defensive situation, every advantage is crucial.

Granted, there are techniques for using a handheld flashlight alongside a pistol that can partially mitigate the downsides, such as the SureFire Rogers technique pictured above (photo courtesy of SureFire). To learn more about the most common handheld flashlight techniques, check out this article:

Types of Pistol Lights

There are countless pistol light makes and models on the market today, but they generally fall into two categories:

Full-Size Duty Lights

These larger lights are sometimes referred to as duty lights as a result of their popularity with law enforcement and other armed first responders. They typically have a large lens, deep reflector, high battery capacity, and powerful light output of 1,000 lumens or more. They also tend to have higher candela (i.e. beam intensity) which produces a tighter "hotspot" in the center of the beam and improved throw for long-distance illumination.

A few examples of popular full-size duty lights:

Compact Lights

On the other end of the spectrum, we have compact pistol lights. These lights offer a smaller size and more concealable shape at the expense of some trade-offs in light output, beam pattern, and/or battery life. While duty lights are ideal for outside-the-waistband (OWB) carry, many users prefer compact lights for inside-the-waistband (IWB) concealed carry. Their lower lumens and candela may not be as effective for long-distance illumination, but they provide plenty of light for close-range or indoor engagements.

A few examples of popular compact pistol lights:

Pistol Light Pros & Cons

So, what are the advantages and disadvantages of putting a pistol light on your carry gun? We'll outline a few of each below.

Pros

  • Hands-free illumination — As mentioned above in the handheld flashlight section, the first pro is that a weapon-mounted light leaves your hands free to grip the pistol, reload, clear malfunctions, or perform other important tasks (such as using a radio or cell phone to call for help). And in the worst-case scenario where one of your hands is severely injured, you'll still be able to manipulate the light and shoot one-handed with either your strong hand or support hand.

Above: A student at a BRVO Tactical course practices one-handed shooting with his SIG P320, which is equipped with a Streamlight TLR-1 HL weapon light.

  • Reliable target identification — There's no question that a pistol mounted light is better than having no light at all for nighttime PID purposes.  And unlike a handheld flashlight, a pistol light is always positioned in the same spot (below the barrel) so it won't create shadows at unpredictable angles. It can't be dropped unless you lose control of the pistol, at which point you've got much bigger problems. Also, since you won't be using it on a daily basis for mundane tasks, the battery should be fully charged when you need it most.
  • Defense-oriented light output — Unlike many everyday carry flashlights, which need to be able to illuminate anything from the menu in a restaurant to a dark room during a power outage, your pistol light is a tool built for a single purpose. Its beam pattern is calibrated to show whatever your sights are aimed at, plus a little extra light "spill" at the sides for peripheral vision. In situations where a shot must be fired before the shooter can present the gun fully and acquire a precise sight picture, a light's central hotspot can even be used as an imprecise reference point for where the rounds will impact.

Above: This SureFire X300 Turbo duty light produces an extremely tight, high-candela beam pattern that's well-suited to shooting at 25 yards or more.

  • Fast activation — With a little practice, you should be able to activate your pistol light without adding more than a few tenths of a second to your concealed carry draw. That's certainly faster than you'd be able to draw your pistol and then draw a handheld flashlight. Lights with momentary activation switches can be turned on and off quickly, reducing the risk of giving away your position as you move around during a gunfight.
  • Visual deterrence — In an ideal world, drawing your pistol will be enough to make an attacker reconsider their life choices without the need to fire a shot. If that's not the case, hitting them in the face with 1,000 blinding lumens is likely to serve as a little extra encouragement. If you've ever experienced this (obviously with a light that's not attached to a real weapon), you'll understand exactly how disorienting it can be.

Cons

  • Weight and complexity — Mounting any light on the end of your pistol adds a little weight and bulk. In some cases, this may make the weapon less comfortable to conceal, but a good holster helps a lot, and compact weapon lights generally eliminate that issue. You'll also need to periodically maintain your light by swapping the batteries and wiping any carbon buildup off the lens.
  • Single-purpose tool — Your pistol light should be viewed as a supplement to your everyday carry flashlight, not a replacement for it. Obviously, you can't go waving your gun around to read a menu in a restaurant. Your flashlight can double as a weapon light (with some drawbacks, as mentioned above) but your weapon light definitely can't replace a regular flashlight.

Above: A student uses his Modlite PL350C to illuminate a target from behind cover at a Full Spectrum Warrior pistol training course. Note the bright "splash back" caused by the light not being pushed out past the edge of the barricade.

  • Training requirement — As with any tool, you need to practice with your pistol light in order to use it effectively. We recommend taking a low-light pistol course with a qualified instructor. This will teach you how to efficiently activate and deactivate your light, how to use it around cover without excessive splash back (as seen above), and will expose any reliability issues your light may have. We've seen many students who assumed their lights were good to go until they tried using them at classes, only to realize they shut off under recoil or fell off the gun.
  • Holster compatibility? — It's true that finding a holster that works with your pistol and weapon light combination is a little more challenging than finding one that fits the pistol alone. However, unless you're using a rare pistol or off-brand weapon light (like the type found on Amazon for $30) it shouldn't be too difficult to find a high-quality holster that's designed for it. On that note...

Light-Bearing Holsters

At LAS Concealment, we offer a wide range of light-bearing and non-light-bearing holsters. Whether you're the type of person who never leaves home without a pistol light or someone who doesn't feel the need to carry one, we've got you covered.

Here are a few of our light-bearing concealed carry holster options:

You can view the rest of our IWB and OWB holsters here: LAS Concealment Holsters

Patrick McCarthy

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