I know there are a lot of us here on the forum who have firearms around the house for Self Protection, and a number of us carry concealed with the same thing in mind. I wonder how many of us have participated in Dim Light shooting to accustom ourselves to acquiring the sights in low light situations? Statistically most self defense shootings occur in close range low light situations.
As a former Law Enforcement Firearms / Tactical Shooting Instructor, I have had the opportunity to conduct a significant number of low light training sessions with my officers and do quite a bit of low light shooting myself. Surprisingly, many of the officers shot BETTER in low light.
Yup, when they were allow a bit more time, and the back lit sights were RIGHT there in front of them, they actually focus on the sights much more and the groups are centered better and smaller than their average.To be fair, there are those that just lose it in low light and have trouble functioning... but those are the ones we made sure were assigned to desk jobs, day duty, or didn't finish the academy.
A few things I told my Officers as we moved into the Dim Fire training....In short range shooting situations, you illuminate the target with the light and bring your firearm up into the beam and sight across the top of the slide for a flash sight picture and fire. In CLOSE RANGE... Three to Five yards... this will put rounds into the center of mass. You note that we do not fire at a target you can't identify. (For homeowners, we wouldn't say... "ALL the kids are safe in bed, if someone is moving around at 2am or crawling thru a window, they have to be the bad guy.") Hmmm? Really? Suppose little Johnny or Joanie snuck out to meet friends and lost their key, or is sneaking back in? Always illuminate the target, even if it's a short burst of light to identify and then you use the night sights.
(In reality, most of us use flashlight techniques that marry the gun and the light, so they move as one. Where the light looks, the gun is always pointed. OR... we have a weapon mounted light.... )
Just sayin..For longer distances, if you can POSITIVELY identify the target with ambient light, you can put the sights on target and slowly squeeze the shot. The sights need to be aligned for the shot to hit, and you must be mindful of the background of your target. Don't want miss and shoot into the room(s) behind the subject. I had always advocated use of a light, and shooting from behind cover...
Also, be careful in your movement as vision is restricted. Move more slowly and move carefully. But, be prepared to move if you shoot as you have just marked your position and you will likely draw return fire in a real life situation.
We give the Sheriff's Office a call now and then and tell them we are going to do some low light shooting, tell him about how many rounds we plan to fire, how long our range will be hot and call when we are finished shooting. Of course, we live in farm country so they don't mind, if we call in advance. They know I have a range and it's safe.
Once we were ALL finished for the day, turn the lights up full to police the brass and collect all the equipment.
