Street robber/mugger blinding torch needed.

[Locoboy5150]

Yeah, I read that part about it fitting into a handbag. Just get her a huge handbag for the Maglite.

 

[Justin Case]

How many muggers do you think will allow you to reach for a metal object and point it at them? Don't you see the potential dangers here in most cases? In daytime it wont help, and in the dark, it may force the bad guy to react. That is my point. Every action has a reaction, and that's real life.

Its not normal walking around public with a flashlight ready in the hand, not even by flashoholics.

How many will allow you to draw a flashlight on them? I don't know, I haven't interviewed every mugger on the planet. I would wager, however, that probably no mugger wants their victims to give them a hard time. It's bad for business. They love the victim mentality.

You seem to be projecting your own imagined failure scenarios and stating them as fact -- "most cases", "wont (sic) help", "not normal" -- when it is really mere opinion.

There is no law of physics that says you have to make a big show of drawing the flashlight in full view of the attacker. The whole deal is surprise. The first inkling the attacker gets of a problem is when he sees a bright flash of light in his face. I can just as easily postulate that by the time the attacker orients himself, you are long gone. Automobile accident reconstruction shows that typically the reaction time to a surprise stimulus is about 1.5 sec. In that time interval, you can be 21 feet away and running fast, while the other guy is getting his bearings.

So what it won't work in daytime (outdoors). Don't use it then. I've run tests in class and it works in indoor office lighting well enough so that the opponent's reaction time was noticeably degraded. So basically, from indoor light brightness to outdoor darkness, a flashlight can interrupt an opponent's OODA loop. What more do you want? It's just a flashlight. I'll take 1.5 free seconds any day in a self-defense situation.

 

[Justin Case]

well if the purse was jerked right from her, the flashlight would be out of the picture anyway. Someone has to reach for the flashlight to really use it in a self defense scenario, don't they?

It has been empirically proven time and time again that action beats reaction. Multiple practitioners at the National Tactical Invitational have drawn a holstered Sim gun and shot their role-playing attackers who had their Sim guns already aimed in, and the attackers never even got a shot off.

Action beats reaction, surprise resets the OODA loop, constant insertion of OODA loop interruptions never allows the attacker to catch up.

Is this result guaranteed? Of course not. But one certainly can draw a flashlight from a purse in plenty of time to use it.

 

[Warp]

Multiple practitioners at the National Tactical Invitational have drawn a holstered Sim gun and shot their role-playing attackers who had their Sim guns already aimed in, and the attackers never even got a shot off.

In cases like that the guy coming from the holster is, oh, about fifty times more skilled.


Drawing on a guy who has his gun in his hand, pointed at you, is suicidal.

 

[Locoboy5150]

Drawing on a guy who has his gun in his hand, pointed at you, is suicidal.

What...are you saying that Hollywood has been *LYING* to us all these years?!!!

I always get a chuckle at those overly used scenes in just about every action film when a guy can move faster than another guy's trigger finger.

 

[grunscga]

You guys are running off on a completely irrelevant tangent. If a bad guy already has a gun out and pointed at you, pulling out a flashlight and sprinkling some photons on him is not going to help, regardless of who does what first.

However: THAT IS NOT THE POINT...unless there is a high percentage of teleporting ninja muggers spotted in the vicinity. By the time you see a teleporting ninja mugger, it's already too late for anything other than his good will to do you any good (never trust in the goodwill of a ninja mugger, teleporting or otherwise).

Any other kind of mugger, at least in my somewhat limited experience growing up in a major metropolitan area, can NOT appear in front of you out of thin air, guns drawn. They have to approach you, and in the process, evaluate you. If they get right up to you and you show no sign of knowing they're there, then they will happily proceed to mug the [censored] out of you. However, if they realize that you are already watching them, the trouble you can cause them goes way up in their mind. Are there hard-cases out there that will still go through with it, even if it seems like you might put up a fight? Probably, although I've never run into one (luckily for both of us). On the other hand, I'm a relatively big dude that used to be in much better shape, so that puts me ahead of a woman as far as intimidation goes.

For me, the whole argument comes down to this: is carrying a flashlight useful for someone spending time in the dark? Yes. Is there a possibility that it could be used to intimidate someone with bad intentions but little initiative? Yes. Is there a downside? No (unless you consider the extra carried weight to be a downside). So what's the problem?

 

[Justin Case]

In cases like that the guy coming from the holster is, oh, about fifty times more skilled.


Drawing on a guy who has his gun in his hand, pointed at you, is suicidal.

Yeah, you need a certain level of skill -- and guts. But hardly "fifty times" more. Refer back to my citation of car accident reconstruction findings that typical reaction time to a surprise is about 1.5 sec. Most C class shooters can draw from concealment in 1.5 sec or less, and with a sidestep movement integrated in.

But the point isn't to advocate drawing against a drawn gun. The point is that action beats reaction.

Sure, many responses are less than desirable -- be it a weapon disarm, solo clearing, or drawing against a drawn gun -- assuming you still have other options. What you choose to do in self-defense is situation-dependent. I've never denied that. But I'll tell you what. If someone is trying to force me into a car or a car trunk or to some isolated location, I'll take my chances with a draw, because the alternative is clearly unacceptable. I'll draw a flashlight if that's all I have. I'll also say that if you have a losing mindset, you'll probably lose.

 

[Warp]

Most C class shooters can draw from concealment in 1.5 sec or less, and with a sidestep movement integrated in.

And most people, period, can fire in less than 1.5 seconds when the gun is in their hand and pointed at their target.


Trust me, I know. I can draw and fire three shots on target from a level 2 retention holster in 1.5 seconds. Well, I could last year, I havnt been on a range that was that nice since then. And I have done my fair share of FoF training with the blue guns. The standard weapon retention, disarmament, DT, etc.




BUT this is very off topic and I apologize, that will be the last I post about drawing/guns/etc in this thread.

 

[Search]

I think a lot of people (non CPFmers included) need to realize the purpose of a bright light.

I don't think this kind of question should be asked on a flashlight forum. It needs to be asked in a place that isn't the internet actually.

JustinCase said the only thing that should be said. Something to the affect of a light is a step in a solution to the problem, not the solution itself. Which ties into the first sentence of this post.

 

[the.Mtn.Man]

Its not normal walking around public with a flashlight ready in the hand, not even by flashoholics.

Nobody's suggesting to do it as a matter of habit, but if you're out walking by yourself at night and think you might need to defend yourself then having it in your hand and ready do wield makes sense.

 

[J_C]

The problem with a flashlight in these types of scenarios is you do not want to cause fear, anger, confusion of any kind. You want the situation to go SLOW AND CALM.

People committing there crimes may be on edge already, or on drugs, or desperate for drugs, etc. You cannot predict what someone will do when they are surprised but whatever it is, 9 times out of ten it is something worse than if things were SLOW AND CALM.

 

[the.Mtn.Man]

I've run tests in class and it works in indoor office lighting well enough so that the opponent's reaction time was noticeably degraded.

I can picture you sneaking up on your classmates and suddenly shining a light in their face and then retreating as they sit there rubbing their eyes and saying, "What the hell!"

 

[Justin Case]

I would definitely suggest a single mode light. Much as I like my new SureFire U2A, it would be a bad thing to be using it in Min mode and forget to reset the selector ring to Max. Sequential access UIs are even worse IMO, forcing you to cycle through the modes in series with each tail button press. Mode memory sounds good in theory, but often fails in practice as well. The time interval for mode memory is often incompatible with self-defense usage.

I really dislike lockout tailcaps. A self-defense situation is the last place I want to have to twist the tailcap to take it out of lockout.

I could live with a single mode, forward clicky. But I prefer the original SF tailcap UI -- no lockout, momentary-on only.

A 2-stage tailcap UI such as the McC2S/McE2S is probably acceptable, assuming 100% reliability. In principle, stress should make you press the tail button harder, thus activating the High mode that you want anyway.

I don't like the Aleph flattop tailcap button style. It is overly hard to engage the switch reliably and fast. I also dislike metal shrouded tailcap buttons, which also makes button engagement that much more difficult. I'm not interested in tailstanding my self-defense equipment. If I need to do so, I'll use a different light. Or use a Z48/Z49. I can lay my thumb across the rubber shroud, collapsing it, and hitting the button. I don't need to angle my thumb over the top.

I like pocket clips and I like on-body carry, but for ladies in business attire, it's hard to picture a SureFire L4 or even a TW4 clipped to their garment, so purse carry is probably going to be the rule.

IMO, you need a bright light to be effective. Yes, that can impact your own dark-adapted vision. There's no free lunch. But it would be worse if you negatively impacted your own vision but didn't induce enough of a visual surprise to the opponent. My opinion is that the minimum acceptable hot spot brightness is that from a SureFire 6P. I personally prefer more than that. YMMV.

 

[Justin Case]

The problem with a flashlight in these types of scenarios is you do not want to cause fear, anger, confusion of any kind. You want the situation to go SLOW AND CALM.

People committing there crimes may be on edge already, or on drugs, or desperate for drugs, etc. You cannot predict what someone will do when they are surprised but whatever it is, 9 times out of ten it is something worse than if things were SLOW AND CALM.

Sure, it's a force continuum. I believe that I wrote before that the flashlight probably comes between the lowest level of presence/verbal commands/interaction (a non-LEO probably has very little presence so it's basically verbal commands/verbal interaction for most of us) and soft hands. Same as the StoppaRed product as far as I can tell. I want to set my boundaries before I have to lay hands on anyone. Setting boundaries afterward is too late.

If I'm using the light, I want them to be surprised.

 

[blub]

Just act crazy, wear your underwear on your head, hold your flashlight in your mouth and mold a couple of Snickers bars into a gun, nobody will hassle you.

 

[Justin Case]

I forgot, I also don't like itty-bitty lights. They are hard to find, hard to hold, and tend to get blocked by the meat of your hand.

I don't like smooth, slippery lights either.

Tail up or tail down carry seems like a personal preference.

I would carry it in the same place every time so that reaching for it becomes reflexive. Moving the carry location from place to place is just asking for confusion under stress.

For a carried a lot, rarely used light, I'd probably use primary 123A cells to power the light.

 

[Benson]

Its not normal walking around public with a flashlight ready in the hand, not even by flashoholics.

It is, at night. Especially in questionable areas; I don't really walk through any bad neighborhoods, but there's a few that aren't exactly good late at night. Even when streetlights are adequate to see, and I'm keeping a low profile by not using a light, I always have one in my hand in these areas, and I wouldn't find it the least bit odd if anyone else did.

 

[M@elstrom]

Hi. As per title. What small handbag friendly torch would you suggest? Got to be able to blind them for 30 seconds, easy to use, maybe strobe effect? Want to buy one for my now wife for when I can't pick her up from the train station.

Things you'll need to consider as a "one size fits all" approach shouldn't be pursued...


#1 First I'd have to enquire exactly how BIG this handbag of your wife's is... I've seen some rather large shoulder slung bags over the years.

#2 30 seconds is a little optimistic in terms of ocular reaction to over exposure to light (seeing stars), many things can influence the pupil's reaction time including but not limited to alcohol, drugs, sleep deprivation, age & health so working with a more realistic 5~10 second window-of-opportunity your wife will need to plan ahead the type of reaction she intends to employ immediately after disrupting her aggressor's OODA loop (thought/decision plan & process), a good article relating to Boyd's Cycle (OODA) can be found HERE, there's also an interesting article relating to the use of a flashlight to create chaos during a confrontation (albeit more aimed at tactical operations).

#3 Choice of power source is going to be paramount, is your wife likely to regularly check the batteries? OR would the superior shelf life offered by a Lithium cell be advised? I'd likely recommend the latter.

#4 User interface, during periods of high stress our fine motor skills can and do become impaired leaving us with only our gross motor skills (those performed by your major muscle groups) so ease of operation is critical!

#5 How much light output is warranted? well according to Surefire a tactical level of light is around 50 Lumens plus, as manufacturers rate their lights differently I'd start looking in the 150Lm+.

#6 Lastly no product on today's market that your wife can legally carry will have as much influence on the outcome of an attempted assault/mugging as self defence tuition... period, when used in conjunction with a flashlight her chances of escape increase dramatically.

Personally I'd be looking for alternative transport solutions (a friend, relative OR taxi) and avoid putting your partner at risk to begin with :thumbsup:

 

[TooManyGizmos]

Just act crazy, wear your underwear on your head, hold your flashlight in your mouth and mold a couple of Snickers bars into a gun, nobody will hassle you.

Yeah ..... I was gonna suggest :

Skunk perfume , carry a Bible and a soap box , and preach sermons on the train platform .

Every one will keep their distance and leave her alone .
.

 

[DM51]

Most of the last ~20 posts have been more to do with self-defense and training, which I must once again repeat is off topic for this forum.