In my recent piece on Steve Fisher’s Lowlight class, I spoke about the use cases for the regular civilian needing a weapon light. The cases were when you may only have one hand to operate your home defense weapon, because you have a small child or someone who will require one of your arms to move or defend, or if you only have one arm/hand to use! Maybe you just had shoulder/hand surgery? Any of these scenarios can necessitate alteration of gear to meet the demands of the situation (“Mission drives the gear train!” -Pat Rogers, RIP) that you may find yourself in. There are compact lights, smaller than the TLR-1 I pictured here, but again, the use/utilization is the issue I have. See the article I linked for an explanation of that argument.

5” guns aren’t GIANT, they’re roughly the same size as the venerable 1911 pistol in its original configuration. This gun, being a double stack, striker-fired 9mm, is thicker in the slide than a 1911, but not overly so. The trick with 5” guns is concealing them in normal people clothing, but it CAN be done. But that’s not an issue for the case I am talking about here. I carried a pistol similar to this, as a commissioned Reserve Peace Officer in Tennessee for several years (M&P 1.0 4.25”). Optics weren’t widespread in LE like now, especially in Appalachia, but I DID use a WML. But like I talked about in the article, on-duty LEO’s have a different job than regular folks, and it is important to know the distinction.

HOME DEFENSE

The classic home defense situation is the, “bump in the night.” You hear something strange, novel, and it cues you to either investigate, or at the very least, verbally challenge the noise to find out what it is. Hopefully it isn’t a black bear, like this poor gent. But with a pistol mounted WML, and no handheld, because you are in a sling for a surgery following a labrum tear, you may find yourself verbally challenging something at the end of your hallway, or the foot of your bed, hypothetically. Now, the laws of your jurisdiction may vary, but in mine, an unauthorized and uninvited guest to your home is there illegally, and if they are there for nefarious purposes, lethal force could be legally permissible to be used in a case of self-defense. But how do you do this, without muzzling the unknown source, who COULD be a burglar, but COULD also be your child who snuck out to go howling with their friends and you caught them sneaking back in. But my arm is in a surgical splint and sling, so how do I illuminate the unknown threat (it’s a threat at this point, because it didn’t respond to the verbal challenge and we STILL DON’T know who it is…yet) without pointing a gun at a loved one (RULE TWO: Never allow the muzzle to cross anything you are not will to destroy) and because you live in the sticks, the power is out, and you can’t just do the super un-cool Dad trick and turn the dang hall light on!

FOR MANIPULATIONS

Although my current state outlaws standard capacity magazines, having MORE than ten rounds in the pistol would be preferable. Not because you need to shoot more, but because you would need to reload LESS. If you are in your skivvies, or buck naked like most people who are sleeping are, you probably don’t have your EDC gear or your battle belt on. Ok, some of you true believers maybe sleep in the nude with a battle belt on, but I assure you, once you find a romantic interest, that’ll change! If I could use a 17 round standard capacity magazine or even larger, I would! A secondary effect of having tall sights and/or an optic is that you can rack the slide using the sights or the optic as a hook, to gain mechanical advantage, even with one hand.

OPTICS, SIGHTS AND LIGHTS

I like Holosun optics. I have seen every major brand of optic fail in classes that I have attended or taught, including Holosun, Aimpoint, Trijicon, Vortex and I’m sure some others I am forgetting. I also OWN all of those same makes of optics, and I use them with confidence. Pistol mounted optics (PMO’s) are an enthusiast’s tool; for my normy friends that want the Toyota Tacoma of guns, I would recommend a stock M&P or Glock 19, put on some sights or modify the OEM to something you can see, and press on. If they want a PMO, that’s going to require MORE training AND more maintenance than they are willing to give, so be wary. But many of the malfunctions I have seen were due to install errors, poor surface prep, under torqued screws, over-torqued screws that broke, or batteries not being changed. I change my carry gun batteries, as well as my handheld light’s batteries in November at Daylight Savings time day. Your day may be your birthday, New Year’s Eve day, whatever you like!

This is the Holosun 507 Comp and the, “Comp,” stands for, “competition,” but it really is Holosun’s response to the also popular Trijicon SRO. I like the big window, and for civilian defender duties, an open emitter, if you are an enthusiast who keeps your gear maintained, is fine. I remember my buddy Jeremy Horton, of Horton Knives, world famous blade smith, once said that he didn’t like to use stainless steel in his blades because he can get a better edge with carbon containing steel AND he feels like a person who uses his knives for serious purposes has the duty to inspect their knife and care for it regularly, so that it doesn’t rust, regardless of the environment it is in! Makes sense! Although this optic has about 6 or 8 different reticle options, I use the 2 MOA dot, which looks great to my eye, and is easy to pickup on presentation.

For iron sights, the competitor comes with low mount, or standard height, fiber optics. While they are great if you are just running irons, with a dot, they are too low. So I opted to replace them with the XS RD3 Suppressor height sights.

Like optics, I have seen Streamlight and Surefires fail too, so choose whatever you like. I dig the switchology for the TLR-1 series and I upgrade the activation paddles with the Emissary Paddle Shifters. You may like the OEM switches, but they offer upgrades for the Streamlight TLR-1 and TLR-7 series, as well as the Surefire X300 series.

STORING AND TRANSPORTING YOUR HD GUN

If you keep your gun in a quick access safe or however you store it, I think it is advisable to have something covering the trigger guard. It’s a striker-fired gun, so if you press the trigger with enough force, it will fire. To lessen the chances of an unintentional discharge, holstering this big whammer requires a special holster, called a, “LIGHT BEARING HOLSTER,” and many of the popular manufacturers make them. They run the gamut in so many colors and styles, you take your pick! My favorite comes from the Hauptman’s of PHLSTER. In addition to being true MASTER’S of concealment, the Hauptman’s are also technical innovators and I use their gear daily, and have for about a decade now.

IN CLOSING

Another benefit of a 5” gun is you get a pistol that recoils minimally when fired with one hand, and tracks back to target without a tremendous amount of steering. Had I included this caveat piece in my original essay on Steve’s class, it probably would’ve had even fewer views than usual, because articles that exceed 3000 words, well, they are only read by the ENTHUSIASTS. Try as I might, I have never been a TLDR (too long, didn’t read) guy. But who would want a Doctor that performs surgery on people’s heads and mouth’s to be a person that doesn’t read the directions? I sure wouldn’t! Being an, “enthusiast,” isn’t a bad thing…I remember when I first started Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, people would call the students who weren’t competitors or full time martial artists, “enthusiasts,” in a pejorative way. Like somehow the people who had to go to their normal jobs the next day were somehow less than their full-time martial artist counterparts. By merely accepting the responsibility and burden of maintaining your own personal security, outside of the requirements of your chosen profession, you are an enthusiast. Don’t be ashamed to be called an, “enthusiast,” by some of the, “professional,” gun toters out there who look at us in the armed civilian community as, “less than.” And most of all, keep on pursuing your studies and your practice with zeal and enthusiasm, YOU BIG ENTHUSIAST!

THANK YOU FOR READING! Please, like, share on your social media feeds, and subscribe to my RSS feed here so you don’t miss any of my posts. Social media and even google itself does a fantastic job of down throttling pro-gun media sources, so we have to get the message out somehow! -Dr. House