Here is a pictorial essay (people love photos with captions…thanks social media) and explanations to expound on a few points that Lee Weems and I discussed on his excellent podcast, last Sunday. You can watch this show here. We had a great time and I hope you find something useful from it. Talking through things which I don’t normally get to talk about aloud, for me, is a great way to develop ideas and see if things suck or if they hold water. Of course, immediately after the show, I thought of the things that had escaped me during the recording of the episode, and a few other side conversations with Rick Remington, Tom Givens and Louis Caras made me think of a few other things I would add as addendums, or footnotes to that episode.

Here’s what people don’t think about when they carry mouseguns. A contact shot, even with a small caliber gun, CAN be lethal. But many times, it is not. I have a collection of radiographs like this from my time as the Residency Program Director in a GPR/Hospital Dentistry and when I was an Assistant Professor of Oral Surgery. We saw lots of patients just like this. Our area of somatic responsibility was the floor of the orbits (eyeballs) to the Adam’s apple. If someone had something wrong with that real estate, it ended up in our service. This poor fellow was shot with a small caliber pistol round fired at contact distance. Upon meeting him, it appeared as though he had been in a physical altercation, but it wouldn’t ping my acuity radar immediately as a gun shot wound. For hideout guns, deep carry guns, or back up guns, compromises must be made, yes. But for the majority of regular people, you can probably figure out how to conceal something that is marginally more effective in terms of terminal ballistics. It might just be me, with large-man-hand issues, but I can stop most subcaliber pistols from working well; the moving parts rub on my hands. The exception to this is the Ruger LCP and of course the Smith J frames. If someone REALLY needed a small gun that still had a modicum of effectiveness but also allows for regular practice, I would point them to a Smith Bodyguard 2.0 or a Glock 42. Or a J frame in .32 H&R or .38 Special and a whole bunch of training.
This is the STREAMLIGHT WEDGE, which I jokingly referred to as the, “WEDGIE,” because it was truly a pain in the ass for the man who was using it in a recent lowlight class I was in with Steve Fisher. This was the product I mentioned in the episode that didn’t have enough horsepower to illuminate the target from ten yards away. It was just enough light to give away one’s position. I suppose it would work for reading a map…but how many of you have maps? Most people that I know that have maps, have lights more powerful than this. I’m not a Streamlight hater…quite the contrary. I have used Streamlights for 30 plus years at this point, starting with the SL-20, and I think they are innovative, great products. But this one, while it could be great for utility use, I don’t think it does anything that a iPhone flashlight wouldn’t do. They DO make a 1000 lumen variant now, that I haven’t seen, but that version MAY work. Try before you buy.
WML’s for civilian defenders…I am STILL not a fan. Here’s why…it is hard enough to get people to carry a defensive grade pistol in their daily lives. Think I’m wrong? I can tell you that I have personally seen hundreds of students show up to class with a Ruger LCP/J frame in their pocket, and then they will walk to the line and swap that out for a G19 or similar sized pistol. Adding MORE bulk to a gun doesn’t help. I’ve also seen this at competitive shooting events, and I also see what patients carry daily into my practice. People know I am a, “gun guy,” and they wear their guns proudly in my office, which I support. The, “largest,” EDC pistols I see among my patients are single action revolvers, usually with a 4 5/8″ barrel, and in a caliber useful to the farmer or rancher that is wearing it. These are guns that are tools first, and defensive in nature second. Since we have critters up here that eat people, anti critter guns are helpful. Although most of the guns are used to dispatch wounded/suffering animals. Also, for every Ruger Blackhawk I see, I see 5 Ruger LCP’s and five more Beretta Tomcats tucked into the chest pocket of someone’s bib overalls. Those guns are carried as talismans to ward off evil and they aren’t actually effective for real life applications. Thing two is the most important…you SHOULD NOT be pointing a gun at anyone who is not an existential threat to you. With a flashlight attached to your gun, you are going to use it for what? Positively identifying an existential threat? How will you determine who is an existential threat? Not by shining the light around willy-nilly looking for said threat! Yes…the police do that sometimes, even though it is universally considered to be a bad practice. But as civilians, if WE do something like that, and point a firearm at someone who is not an existential threat, we are breaking the law, and we are going to jail. SO WE CANNOT DO THAT. Get a good handheld flashlight, and learn handheld techniques. You will be less apt to point a gun at someone you don’t intend to shoot and you will be more responsible with your firearm. There will be little ambiguity in real life defensive scenarios as to who is attacking you. You don’t need a WML to confirm your target’s identity at that point. The often repeated trope of, “MOST DEFENSIVE SHOOTINGS take place in darkness,” is complete bullshit. They occur during, “hours of darkness,” which is 6pm to 6am. A lit parking lot, the checkstand of a grocery store or the living room of your house with the lights on, all look about the same at 9pm on a Wednesday night as they do during the day. If I am sitting in the dark, watching TV and someone kicks my front door in, and I have to respond from my recliner, do I need a weapon mounted light to determine who just kicked my door off the hinges? Pretty sure it isn’t the Fuller Brush Man or the Girl Scouts with my Thin Mints! And they’ll be backlit by the solar porch lights I have…your mission is the same. Don’t get confused by the Instagram influencers…they aren’t all positive influences (hat tip to Tom Givens on the, “hours of darkness,” and if you don’t know what I am talking about you better train with Tom before he retires).
One more shout out to Tom Givens…I mentioned on Lee’s show that I remember when Tom switched from a 1911 to a Glock 35, but I couldn’t recall exactly all of the specific details (it seems like it was recent but it was probably around 2007) so I asked Tom for clarification. He said,“Tired of being an armorer on 1911. Change springs, tweak extractor, check extractor, tweak extractor again, change extractor. On a Glock, change the recoil spring every 5,000 rds. Rock on. Twice as many BB’s. Pound lighter.” So that makes better sense. With these 2011 guns, they have aluminum or polymer frames, they hold lots of ammo (10 plus one in my case) and they SEEM to run better than my .45 ACP 1911’s. and after about 10K between the two guns, I have yet to require anything other than a recoil spring change at 5K, even though it didn’t suffer any ill effects with a broken in spring. So while it may be a, “phase,” chasing competition wins and building platform proficiency, I will still keep on working with these. Our ancestors and the giants upon whose shoulders we stand knew a thing or two about defensive pistolcraft and the sliding trigger of the 1911 is a great tool, if you know how to use it. I’ve tried other SAO guns like the Beretta 92’s and the SIG P220’s and the hinging trigger versus the sliding trigger just don’t work the same. Your mileage my vary…as well as your budget of time and money. I get where Tom is coming from. If I was still teaching all the time, I would want the simplest solution I could find. In my current station in life, I have lots of time to fiddle and futz with projects. With all that said, I like the Stealth Arms Platypus.

One other mousegun addendum. Craig Douglas’ curriculum on the PCP (Patterned Compliance Pistol) favors a small, flat gun you can keep in your back pocket. You can feign compliance in a robbery attempt until it is time to go to a kinetic solution and deliver contact distance shots. A gun like this would work for that. But for about everything else aside from an interesting piece of micro machinery that also fires .22 LR or .22 Magnum bullets, its utility is dubious. The stocks are made by Hamre Forge and they’re the safest way I can actually handle one of these. I make lots of money with my hands, so I would use a Ruger LCP (the old one) in this PCP role. But again, that’s a niche, hideout gun for a dedicated defensive purpose.
I teased that I was working on piece on the Jeff Cooper Scout rifle concept and practical rifles in general. I found a Grail gun I’ve wanted for a long time, which is the original Scout rifle that Colonel Cooper had in mind, which is the Remington Model 600 Mohawk in .308 Winchester. So we will see how it works out. It’s the lightest of the Scout type rifles I own so far!

THANK YOU FOR READING…if I think of anything else worthwhile to say, you’ll be the first to know! Please like, share on your social media and subscribe to my channel so that you don’t miss anything. WordPress and most of the internet has done a fantastic job of either burying or down throttling the views on defense related content, so as long as my seven regular readers keep tuning in, I’ll keep writing! Be careful out there, and stay alert.