You have had a fun-filled evening with your friends and it’s time to leave for home. It is well into the night and you are walking straight to your car. As you are walking across the street, you sense a shadow across the wall and now you are hearing fast footsteps. You feel a cold sensation running through your body as you try to deviate your mind from the incoming invader. Your footsteps are bigger, and your heart is pounding. Ultimately your chin gets a blow. In a single blow, you are out and down, and you feel helpless watching the invader running with your wallet and other valuables.
Before you can regather your senses, the assailant is long disappeared in the darkness of night.
Out in the dark, there are assailants and invaders looking to hunt their prey. Darkness is their strength and they are professional in running in the dark. At such times, you might be regretting not having a Tactical Flashlight.
Most people including me, take flashlights as general-purpose home utility tool that comes handy in the kitchen and elsewhere in the home when the power goes out. Even some people who do possess tactical flashlights keep them as a camping equipment for occasional survival trips out in the wilderness. However, invaders aren’t just found in the wilderness, they are there in the streets too. According to survival and tactical trainers, tactical flashlights are one of the best self-defense weapons that every person needs carry always.
So, what’s really, we mean by a tactical flashlight?
Ok, before we proceed any further let’s clear our thoughts about what we are really talking about. For clarity, we aren’t talking about any general-purpose flashlights that almost every family possess back at home. We are talking about tactically built flashlights that can be used as a self-defense weapon.
The term tactical clearly reflects the defense purpose built of these tools. These are made to garner the needs of military and civilian law enforcement agencies. Most of the time, these flashlights are designed as such to be able to mount over a weapon for low-visibility scenarios. Speaking of the size, these tactical tools are made much smaller than traditional flashlights we are used to having at home. However, they harness much more power in terms of lumens, than general purpose flashlights. For durability, these are carved out of strong weapon-grade aluminum, so you can trust them for all distress situations.
Now, though the tactical flashlights are typically produced for military and civilian law enforcement agencies, these are great self-defense tool to be carried by masses. Below we will see why you should carry one with you always.
The significance of Carrying a Tactical Flashlight:
Ok, even before we deliberate on the uses and utility of using flashlights in tactical situations, let’s discuss the necessity of carrying one always. Just like a tactical folding knife, flashlights are amongst the best self-defense weapons you can carry along with no special permission. Its utility is highly based upon its versatility in different situations. To say the least, a flashlight isn’t just your home grabbing tool rather a tactical self-defense weapon.
The Ultimate Self-Defense Tool:
To be brutally honest, tactical flashlights are the ultimate non-lethal self-defense weapons, in low-lighting situations. This is one powerful tool which can be used as a deterrent against any malign action by an incoming threat. The best part about these tactical non-lethal weapons is that you need to obtain any government approval / NOC to carry them. These are ideal self-defense tools to be taken to theatres, flights and other places where there’s a restriction to carry a gun or other lethal weapons.
Talking about self-defense purposes of tactical flashlights, we can broadly categorize two main uses of these non-lethal tools:
– Firstly, these are ideal tools to recognize any incoming invader, who often took refuge in darkness to hide their identity. A bright light will help reveal the identity of any assailant, thus creating an ambiguity in mind of incoming assailant for compromised identity. Most of the time, assailants can be deterred-off simply by the ambiguity of compromised identity.
– Secondly, a strong and powerful tactical flashlight gives you the momentarily escape route to run away from incoming invaders. The high lumen light when directly aimed at an assailant’s face will create a momentarily blinding effect. This will give you some extra seconds to run into the safety away from the assailant.
Many professional tactical trainers recommend people to directly shine high lumen lights into the eyes of assailant “reach for the face”. As a synchronized body reaction, the assailant will raise his arms to cover his eyes and will be dysfunctional for some precious seconds. This will give you the much-needed escape route to either run away from the threat or attack back with any lethal weapon you do possess.
Bonus:
– With the increasing threat of street violence, manufacturers of tactical flashlights have started incorporating serrated bezel into the design. These are highly reinforced toothed bezels; hard enough to break car’s windows in case of emergency. Optionally, you can also use these strong bezels to attack the assailant’s face. However, until you do possess a lethal weapon that can impose maximum injury to the assailant (a gun or folding knife), it is highly recommended to use momentarily blindness to flee away to safety.
Searching the best Tactical Flashlight:
Ok, these non-lethal self-defense tools might be great against an incoming invader, however, as with any other tool you can’t generalize the equation for all scenarios. The market is inundated with hundreds of different models and versions of tactical flashlights to choose from. The final decision over a design and variety will ultimately depend upon the budgetary limitations and personal preferences. However, few aspects that we can recommend for a flashlight include:
Compactness:
For any self-defense tool, the size of the tool is one of the most important aspects. Just like a folding knife, the tactical flashlight of your choice needs to be compact and easy to carry always. Ideally, the light should be small enough to fit in your palm completely.
Lumen Frequency:
A minimum of 120 lumens is a must output for any flashlight to be termed as a tactical weapon. The lumens determine that strength of the light illuminated as output. Since you need to create a total blindness effect and earn some time to escape the assailant, higher lumens will earn you more time. To put it simply higher the lumens than 120, better your chances to blind the assailant. Anything below the minimum threshold of 120 will leave you vulnerable.