The dimly lit corner of that parking lot. Getting out of your car at 11 pm behind your house. Both are common, increased-risk, “transition” scenarios.  Low light scenarios. Then, there’s always that breaking glass at 3 a.m. clue that something is about to happen.

One of my Ranger School instructors asked a formation of exhausted, tense Rangers, “What is the first thing that happens at night?

Now, you knew you were had. Trick question, obviously. Bellow out some stupid answer, and he’d drop you for 50 pushups–or worse. So, the company stood there–like he knew we would, since he’d asked hundreds of would-be Rangers the same question many times.

“It gets dark!” he bellowed out, delighted with himself. The implications gradually cut through the hunger, numbness from lack of sleep and aching muscles.

Everything changes once you can no longer see with that razor sharp vision you have in daylight.

Here are some of the obstacles created by the sun going down.

First, and perhaps foremost, we lack training places for low light shooting. Low light training has to be intentional, “after hours,” permissible at your range, or coordinated so that all other users of the range want to do the same training. Someone has to operate the indoor range going lights out, lights on. For many of us, we simply have no such place, at least readily identifiable. Try to find someone with a place to shoot, willing to stay out there when the sun goes down. Talk to your local range about hosting a low light hour. You know, like the old roller-rinks: “Couples only, backward skaters, etc.” They might end up selling some extra weapon lights.

Second, your equipment works differently once you fire your weapon. You can practice that technique all you want in your den, pressing that palm switch, trying out the tailcap switch, or trying out different grips for mating that separate flashlight to your weapon, but you are changing your grip. What happens when the weapon is fired? Here are two examples from my personal experience.

1. Mating my SureFire G2Z Nitrolon (NRA version) light to my Smith & Wesson Model 642 works well. I have yet to find a way to mate it to the stock of my Glock 17 that does not chew the skin off the last knuckle on my little finger. You won’t know that until the weapon recoils and jumps. Your “Rogers / SureFire” technique looks pretty good on the dry run but brings blood during the real thing. That might not be a problem on “the night in question,” but it wreaks havoc on your training.
2. Thumbing the switch on the Streamlight TLR-1 weapon light downward to “on,” (weapon held in right hand) as you move your left thumb downward just before firing works well–until the weapon is fired.
   

   Streamlight TLR-1 Note rocker switch, down=on while held; up=locked on

   My thumb then slips off the switch. Odd, it didn’t do that back in the den when dry-firing. So, instead of lighting up the attack scene, you “flashbulb” the bad guy. You instantly lose the advantage of blinding him, while you’ve just shot your night vision and broken your grip on the gun.

Those are just examples. I am not at all criticizing the equipment; my point is equipment works differently under actual use, hard use, night use, dusty use–real and hard use. Weapon lights obey that rule and can introduce chaos into your self-defense scenario if that chaos is not eliminated by our finding and practicing techniques that work. For your hands. For your eyes.

Third, hang onto your equipment. Night gear-demons seem to play tricks with you, stealing your gear right off the loading bench at the range. Even worse, at oh-dark-thirty, as you rise up from the fog of a deep sleep, realize you are under attack, and start to fumble for your detached weapon light, is it poised right there–for you to knock off the nightstand and onto the floor? Everything changes at night.

Fourth, do you have a “tactical partner” who might be backing you up? I’m talking bedroom partners, not two cops. Have you practiced your tactics together? Is your partner prepared not to blind you, or to back-light you?

I am sure there a other practical experiences and considerations and I’d like to hear them.

Lastly, here’s a story from my days in the 101st at Fort Campbell.

When I arrived at the 1st Battalion 506th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) in 1973, Colonel Lewis Menetrey was in charge. Colonel Menetrey had torn up the training schedule and re-written it–”for the second and third shift” you might say. He nicknamed his 2d Brigade “The Night Brigade” and that told you how you would be spending your time in his brigade. You lived outdoors, but didn’t necessarily get a tan. Colonel Menetrey understood that the helicopter-insertion behind the lines (or vertical envelopment) doctrine being improved would be even more deadly if we could get skilled at using the cover of night as well as the speed and stealth of the Huey and Cobra.

But, everything changes at night. So, we train at night.