Tactics in the dark...

[pfch1977]

This is a spin-off on the lights on guns thread. Im wondering what helps in low-light scenarios besides placing a light on a gun. I feel that using a silver or chrome-plated pistol helps me a lot in low-light.

[hogdogs]

Unlike a light on a gun, you can't turn off the glint from a shiny gun. I prefer a black dingy gun for HD. I feel, for me, it is about practice. I know the layout of my home and my wife has stopped with the monthly rearranging she was fond of but made me re-learn my house. i do not use night lights as they may help in one spot but make my eyes need re-adjusted once past their effectiveness...
Brent

[Perldog007]

I always like night sights and lasers. BUT!!! they do not help you identify your target. Tactical lights on the gun are handy, mag lights make good less lethal weapons, and the modern small tactical hand held lights put out lots o' candlepower compactly.


Personally, I like a 4 C cell mag light. YMMV.

[skeeter1]

i do not use night lights as they may help in one spot but make my eyes need re-adjusted once past their effectiveness...

I have to disagree with this. I have several nightlights in my house, and the odds are if someone is breaking in at night, their eyes probably aren't dark-adapted (from headlights, flashlights), but mine already are. I keep one nightlight on all the time next to my bed and my HD handgun. I can see this argued both ways, but I happen to like nightlights.

[hogdogs]

I guess the real reason we don't have "night lites" is cuz we never made them a family practice. Had some now and than but as a bulb burnt out or the kids were no longer afraid of the dark they faded from use. I am accustomed and comfortable with making my way in total darkness in my home. The kids are aware they need to reply if i address them in the dark (I am quickly noticing that it may be a fantasy to expect a 16-17 yearold child to respond "post haste").
Brent

[skeeter1]

I am accustomed and comfortable with making my way in total darkness in my home.

I used to feel the same way. Somewhere along the line when I wasn't looking, I hit my 50s, and more often than not stubbed my toe on something (bed, door, cat) on my nightly trip to the bathroom. I never had to do that when I was younger. The newer (LED) night lights only take 1 watt of juice and last for years. It's all a matter of what you're more comfortable with, I guess.

[Dwight55]

+1 in favor of the night lights, especially the green ones that never need their bulb changed.

As a caveat, . . . there are none in our bedroom, . . . I can see through the whole house, . . . but there is no vision in our bedroom available to the bg. Yet bg is fully silhouetted in either door to my bedroom.

Again, though, whatever one is comfortable with.

May God bless,
Dwight

[Hardtarget]

There are so many lights around my house I don't need night lights. There are street lights, floods from next door and two houses in back. The whole neighborhood has a "glow". The BG can proably see as good as I can. I just hope they will pick another area to work in.

Mark.

[ActivShootr]

I like to think I have a tactical advantage in my home. The living room is dimly lit from the street light outside. The hallway from which I would approach the LR is pitch dark. Pair this with a super bright flashlight and my choice of hand cannon, this gives me the upper hand.

[TexasSeaRay]

I keep a set of NVG's by my bedside, plus we have the entire property wired for infrared security lights. The walls in our house are condusive to painting heat signatures, so any burglarizing SOB that breaks into our home is going to be blasted since we can see their blob-like movements across our formal living room wall.

Oh, almost forgot--also have the tactical muzzle-flash reducer adapters for the NVGs--no sense in ruining your perfectly good night vision just because you blasted a burglar all to hades and back.

Jeff

[obxned]

I don't use night lights, but do have several good flashlights.

My new night-time toy is a rechargeable spotlight. With 580 lumens, it's like a Phazor set between 'stun' and 'extra crispy'.

[armoredman]

Crimson Trace lasergrips, enough back scatter from the beam to ID in total dark. Also, a cheap 3 watt Garrity LED flashlight with red filter installed. Best I can come up with. Add in home alarm system and two dogs, I think I am OK for now.

[Tanzer]

An unarmed person - Clean up the mess the dogs leave behind. Hand back his arm and call police. Yes, they would.
Armed - We have a 114' long ranch house with an attached garage. I need to protect the entranceway that separates the large common den/dining/kitchen area from the hallway leading to the bedrooms/living room. It also controls egress to the front door, which is far less likely to be breeched. Because of this, I prefer the darkness with just a bit of light from the street light outside. An armed person would find it very hard to negotiate the den, and would either have given himself away by harming my dogs, or be in a lot of trouble. The dining and kitchen areas leave me (and the dogs) a lot of open space. It would be a mess tac light or no tac light if the dogs are still in play, so I'd turn on the house lights at that point.
The dogs are one reason I'm not AS worried about it being a family member. They don't even stand up if it's a kid.
Five doors total to the outside including front and garage. All except one require opening another locked door to gain entry (odd house, I admit, but I liked this). It would make a lot of noise gaining entry. Anyone who goes to that trouble has proven themself to be a threat if armed, and a real stoo-nadge if not armed.

[ISC]

motion activated security lights on the corners of my house and a good watchdog that hates everyone she doesn't know.

[BillCA]

In low-light/nighttime situations it will depend on the layout of your house and your preferred tactics for dealing with an intruder.

I used to have 3 cats, including a black one that disappeared if she slept in the hallway. Nothing like stepping on an invisible cat at 3:28am to make you wet yourself! (not to mention the need for antiseptic afterwards!)

In response to this (and that fact that the big male used to sleep in the front bath's sink bowl) I put nightlights in several places around the house. At night, they provide enough light to allow me to see anyone moving around or lurking. At least one of them will throw a shadow towards the hallway as a warning too.

If you have a 2-story house, using nightlights on the lower floor near the stairwell will illuminate anyone in the stairs or moving around near them (by shadows).

Keep in mind that a nighttime intruder has the advantage of night vision and adrenaline. He's already acclimated to the dark and adrenaline helps with his night vision. You, on the other hand, waking up from a sleep will NOT have your night vision fully ramped up for up to 30 seconds or more. In addition, unless you hear a positive sound that someone is in the house, you may be tired enough that your eyes aren't fully open. Older (50+) folks may have "sleep" in their eyes causing blurry vision too.

Light colored walls in your house will help show a silhoutte, especially if you have a light source somewhere inside the home. Mirrors or mirrored tiles strategically placed where you can see them from the hallway and inspect other parts of the house may be effective.

If you like the devices, those X-10 remote control units which allow you to turn on lights using household wiring as a comm-circuit can be effective too. Turning on the downstairs lighting (or kitchen/livingroom) may cause the intruder to flee or hide. At the very least, you can screw up his night vision while yours remains.

[ISC]

Your natural night vision is a function of how dialated your pupils are. Your night vision is better after sleepng in the dark then it ever will be. It takes about 15 minutes in the dark to get 99% of your night vision back, and a full hour to get the last little fraction. YOU have the advantage in the dark in your own house unless you turn on the light in your bedroom and then walk out into the dark afterwards.

One old standby technique is to keep one eye closed when you anticipate exposure to bright light, so that you still have night vision when the light goes out.

[skeeter1]

If you like the devices, those X-10 remote control units which allow you to turn on lights using household wiring as a comm-circuit can be effective too.

That's a great point. One of my friends has several in his house, and that's probably a good idea.

I'm a flashlight junky, and have a bunch of them. The bedroom flashlight is a 4-D Maglight converted to a LED. It would serve double-duty as shilelage should I need it. The little one that I keep next to my favorite chair is far brighter, but it has nowhere near the heft of that big 'ol Maglight.

[armoredman]

Watch for the cats!

[ActivShootr]

Keep in mind that a nighttime intruder has the advantage of night vision and adrenaline.

While an intruder may have an adrenaline rush, I think my rush would be greater. Every time I am suddenly awakened, mine shoots through the roof. Most times I am fully awake before my feet hit the floor. Everyone is different though. Some people take longer to wake up while others may sleep right through the whole ordeal.

[Rifleman 173]

Got a buddy who is an electrician? Have him wire into place a set of outside lights, high up so that it takes a ladder to reach them, with the on-off switch in your bedroom. When you hear a noise outside, switch on the outside lights to backlight the guy coming into your abode. With backlighting, the bad guy comes into your area having come from a lit area to a darker area in which you have the edge. Plus the guy is at a disadvantage because he's lit up from behind. MAKE SURE THAT YOU POSITIVELY IDENTIFY YOUR TARGET BEFORE FIRING ANY SHOTS. You don't want to accidentally shoot the son/daughter/loved one just because they came home unexpected.

[revance]

My house has just enough light at night for someone familiar with the house to walk through if their eyes are dark adapted. It is still dark enough they would trip on anything left on the floor so I always clear the path to the stairs before going to bed. The downstairs is a tad brighter due to outside light.

The ideal playout would be that I would be waiting in the dark at the top of the steps and once a BG entered "the tunnel" I could light them up with a Surefire and get the jump on them. My bedroom door is about 1' from the top of the stairs, so hopefully I can get there before any BG does. Hopefully I never have to worry about it because I have a dog and an alarm system... anyone still trying to get up the stairs with all that commotion is seriously stupid.

I also installed these really cool deadbolts I found at Target (made by Master Lock) that allow you to disable the tumbler from the inside so they can't be opened (even with a key) from the outside. This means anyone setting off the alarm broke a door or a window and is most likely not my friendly neighbor or a child who decided not to spend the night at their friends house.

My next project idea is to connect the lights downstairs to the alarm system via X-10 so they all turn on when the alarm goes off.

[Th0r]

Lasers and gun lights...

[BillCA]

My next project idea is to connect the lights downstairs to the alarm system via X-10 so they all turn on when the alarm goes off.

Hmm... hear noise, arm self, slide out of bed, hit X-10 switch to light up downstairs....count to 3, turn lights off, listen for exclamations about excrement or sounds of intruder tripping over things in the dark. Then go to the top of the stairs with your flashlight.

Seriously, a 3 second exposure to lights will blot out an intruder's night vision while you retain yours. And you can turn the lights back on if needed.

Two other solutions:
Door/Window alarms - you can buy inexpensive First Alert self-adhesive alarms for doors & windows. I installed these on my sliding front windows so that if the window is opened at night, the screaming alarm will wake me up. (tip: use velcro to affix the magnetic switch "bar" in different spots so you can vent the house in summer.)

Motion-Sensing adapters. A friend's house has two areas where people might enter that are served by opaque hanging lights. He installed adapters in each so that entering the house at night the lights automatically turn on. He added the above alarms, one set to scream (den door) and the other to door-chime (rec room) so he can tell which door is open.

[Derius_T]

Well, I have two of the dual 250 watt bulb motion activated lights on the outside of each entrance, way up high. They will light up ALOT of ground very brightly. That, plus the chows inside, that ask me all the time why I don't let people visit, and I think I'm ok.

[Th0r]

In low light use a simple basic gun, not a complex one. An accurate and fast firing gun helps also. If you have a shotgun or a rifle tie a smaller gun to the stock, so when youre out of ammunition you can switch.