Archive for category Self-Defense

If my previous posts about tactical flashlights made you want one, you’re lucky that there are literally hundreds being made today. Mine is the Blackhawk Gladius. Like all tactical flashlights, the Gladius is very bright and very rugged. Here’s what I think sets it above the others.

The Gladius has three modes: momentary-on, constant-on, and flashing. Momentary-on turns on the light when you press the tailcap button and turns it off when you release the button. This is useful for a quick flash of light when you’re glancing at something in the dark. It’s also useful in combat, and especially gun-fighting, where constant light might give an attacker something to target.

Speaking of combat, the flashing setting is designed to disorient an opponent. I haven’t found it to be useful for day-to-day use. The flashing is rapid enough that, from the user’s end of the light, the strobing looks effectively similar to constant light. From the other end, the flashing is harder and slower to adapt to than a constant, bright light.

The constant-on mode turns the light on when you press the tailcap and off when you press the tailcap again. This is useful when you want the light on for extended time and don’t want to have to hold the button down the whole time. The constant-on mode has an additional useful feature in that it can be dimmed to preserve battery life (looking for your keys doesn’t require 200 lumens, you know) and to preserve night vision. Additionally, the flashlight can be set so that the constant-on mode comes on at full brightness, at minimum brightness, or at the previously-set brightness level. I have mine set to come on at the dimmest setting. If I want a utility light, I turn it on in the continuous mode and know I won’t blast myself with bright light. When I need maximum light, I switch to momentary mode, or just turn on in continuous mode (at the dimmest setting) and hold the button down to cause the flashlight to ramp up to full brightness.

This might sound a bit complicated, but the flashlight is very well designed. There is a ring around the tailcap button that is used to select between the light’s three modes. The first position is constant-on, the second is strobe, the third is momentary-on. The dial turns easily with one hand, and switching between modes quickly becomes second nature.

Speaking of ergonomics, I’ve held tactical flashlights whose tailcap button was quite stiff. I suppose this keeps the light from being activated accidentally, but it means that your thumb gets quite a workout when using the flashlight in momentary-on mode. The Gladius has a lock-out position on the rotary dial to prevent accidental activation of the light and easy-to-press tailcap button.

A final nifty feature of the Gladius is its power management circuitry. The light moderates the current to the LED bulb to keep light output stable as the battery gets weaker. When the battery is getting low, the light blinks once every fifteen seconds to indicate that you should change the batteries soon, but the light continues to operate at full output right up until the moment the batteries totally crap out. What this means is that you’ve always got a heads-up that your batteries are getting low, but as long as there is any battery left at all, the light is fully usable. Actually, it’s not quite fully usable. When the batteries are low, the constant-on mode is disabled. The idea here is that you are no longer able to use the light in its most utilitarian mode, but if you need full brightness for something important, you’ve still got it. The same power management circuitry monitors the LED’s temperature and reduces light output if the LED gets too hot. Overheating the LED is one of the ways that these flashlights can be damaged. For the record, I’ve never had this happen. I imagine that it must happen when the light is used continuously and/or in a very hot environment.

Some reasons people might choose another flashlight over the Gladius include: It’s not the absolute brightest light out there, for those who are into the numbers game. It doesn’t have built-in rechargeable batteries. Sure, you could buy rechargeable CR123 cells, but their performance is hit-or-miss in many tactical flashlights. And, of course, there’s the cost. $150-$170 depending on where you buy it. It does not come with a strike bezel, so for those for whom a strike bezel is an absolute must, this flashlight is out. Finally, it only comes in one color of light: white. People who want a red (for night vision) or blue (for tracking an animals blood trail) light will have to either buy gels to put over the light’s standard 1.25″ bezel or choose a different flashlight with colored LEDs built in.

A last word: The Gladius is not designed first and foremost as a weapon light, but it is rugged enough to be mounted on a firearm without damaging it, and its 1″ diameter body fits into a standard set of scope rings, for attachment to an accessory rail.

In a previous post, I discussed why a tactical flashlight is a good choice for an all-around flashlight. In this post, I’ll discuss the specific use of a flashlight in combat.

The first use of a tactical flashlight in combat is simply to provide illumination. Many self-defense situations occur at night, and if you can’t see something, you can’t respond to it. This application is fairly obvious.

The second use of a tactical flashlight in combat is to blind and disorient an opponent. Tactical flashlights are designed to be powerful enough to consistently blind a person whose eyes are adjusted to darkness at the short distances where self-defense situations often occur. Depending on the specifics of the situation, the burst of light may cause the person to see spots even after the flashlight is no longer applied. This use of the flashlight has the additional advantage of being completely non-lethal. Frankly, you can’t even be charged with a crime for flashing someone in the eyes, as you might be with other less-lethal defense tools like mace or a stun gun.

Finally, tactical flashlights can be used as direct hand-to-hand weapons. When held in the fist, similar to the old “roll of pennies,” they increase the effect of punches. Although the flashlight doesn’t add much weight to the fist, even a light-weight cylindrical object increases the effect of the punch by causing the fist to be more rigid and deform less on contact. Additionally, some flashlights have what’s called a “strike bezel,” in which the bezel of the flashlight has a scalloped edge. This presents some edges to concentrate the force if a person is struck by the bezel itself.

Of the three uses, I find the second one to be the most interesting and the least obvious. At first, a flash in the eyes from a bright light might not sound like much of a combat advantage, but the effect should not be underestimated. When the flash is unexpected, it can stall an aggressor. The blinding effect further degrades the aggressor’s ability to act effectively. A flashlight, by itself, will probably not end a fight, but it can provide just enough of an advantage, just enough of a window of response to do something else, like subdue the person with hand-to-hand techniques, or make a run for it.

The real beauty of a tactical flashlight is its fundamental innocuousness. In a dark environment, nobody will even think twice about a person carrying a flashlight. You won’t draw attention from the cops like you might with some other weapon, and flashlights are legal to carry pretty much everywhere. While rangering at Alchemy this year, I regularly had my flashlight in my hand during interactions with un-ticketed people who I was ejecting from the event. I doubt that it drew much suspicion. It’s night-time! Of course you’ve got a flashlight! Because relatively few people are aware of tactical flashlights, I was probably the only one who knew that the flashlight was one defensive option if a situation turned violent.

And let’s not forget that, unlike some single-purpose defensive tools like guns, a flashlight is useful all the other 99.9% of the time when you’re not defending yourself.

A tactical flashlight is one that has been designed for combat and self-defense use. To those who are unfamiliar with the concept, this might at first sound silly. Flashlights are for light, not fighting, right? But anybody who’s fought in the dark knows that illumination is important, and more fundamentally, so does anybody who’s fumbled around in the dark for their keys. Tactical flashlights make excellent day-to-day flashlights in addition to their combat utility.

Tactical flashlights have several useful features.

They are extremely bright. In combat, this means that they can blind and disorient people and animals. In day-to-day use, this means that they’re useful at distances where an ordinary flashlight would falter. For example, at Alchemy this year, I was working the perimeter for the main burn pageant. One of the other perimeter rangers noticed a participant walk off towards the trees in such a way that he could have wandered around the side of the perimeter line. He was about 50 yards away, and it was night time, so he was difficult to pick out from the trees. My flashlight was bright enough that, even at that distance, we could easily see that he was just taking a leak. In another case, I saw at a distance of about 20 yards what looked like the silhouette of a rifle in a participant’s hand. I was sure that it wasn’t actually a rifle, but I felt obligated to investigate further. Instead of running after the participant, yelling, or otherwise exerting myself and creating a disturbance, I lit him up the lower half of his body with my flashlight. This gave me a better look at the thing in his hand and also caused him to notice me and walk my direction. As he got closer, he explained that his very-real-looking firearm was actually a BB-gun loaded with glow-in-the-dark, biodegradable BB’s. They looked awesome! Finally, the extremely bright beam of the light was usable as a headlight on a golf cart at night, where a normal flashlight might not have had enough throw to allow us to drive at a convenient speed.

They are small, especially considering the brightness of their beams. Most of them are under six inches long and weigh less than eight ounces. This makes them more convenient to hold for longer periods of time and makes it more likely that you’ll be carrying it with you when you want it.

Finally, they are extremely rugged and difficult to break. Because they are designed for combat, they are often strong enough that you could hold them in your fist and hit a person with the lens end. This means you’re unlikely to break one by dropping it.

In the interest of fairness, I should point out some down-sides of tactical flashlights. The primary one is that they are expensive. They typically run from about $150 to about $300. Hey, a 6-ounce tube that can throw a 170-lumen beam and survive being run over by a car doesn’t come cheap.

Adding to the expense are the batteries. They usually run on CR123 camera batteries, which are more expensive than regular alkalines. A typical run-time is 90 minutes, so you can spend a lot on batteries if you use your flashlight regularly. Many flashlights mitigate this factor by offering a high-intensity beam for combat and a low-intensity beam for day-to-day use. Alternatively, some of them have built-in rechargeable batteries, which saves cost, but eliminates the possibility of quickly changing out a set of dead batteries in order to continue using the light in the field. A final option might be to buy rechargeable CR123 batteries. Unfortunately, these flashlights are usually designed to maximize the light output from a pair of regular CR123s, and many of them don’t work very well with the differing voltage pattern of rechargeable CR123s.