PSPFI,

The biggest thing I find when dealing with officers, myself included, is that we often fail to give full reasons to other officers.  For some reason we expect that they should be on our wave length.

Getting the department to authorize a light, or optic often isn't easy if there is a policy that prohibits this.  Something to consider is what benefit the department gains from your altering from their "norm".

Day shift mentality is prevalent, and you need to phrase your email, or conversation to match who you are talking to.  All officers carry a flashlight.  Why?  Because we need to identify a target before we shoot.  This is taught in the earliest stages of lethal force briefings.  If you don't know, you don't shot.  The lack of light on a carbine goes directly against those same basic principles.  When we search a room, building, or alley at night, we are sweeping with light and searching for possible threats.  When we do high risk stops, we use a curtain of light to our advantage.  There is no effective way to clear a building using a carbine one handed while holding a light.  A weapon mounted light is not only more effective in this, but it is the only realistic manner in which we can be expected to perform. Not being able to use a light, means you are jumping into a liability concern as you are unable to do the job the way you were trainined.

Next, lets talk about optics.  As a firearm instructor, I teach officers the basic fundamentals of marksmanship, as well as more advanced techniques, but basics are basics, and not much changes.  How many times have you heard the term "hard front sight focus", or something similar?  The answer is that we say it as instructors all the time.  To engage at distance and be accurate, we need to concentrate on the front sight.  HOWEVER, when we switch to simmunition training, or reality based training, we (instructors) tell our students and officers to "watch the hands".  Hands are what contain the threat that will kill you.  

The question becomes, which is it?  Watch the hands, or watch the front sight?  Running an optic, we change the equation from concentrating on a front sight, to concentrating on the threat.  This is one example of how we can have our cake and eat it too.  Optics such as the Aimpoint and Eotech are used by overlaying the dot onto the target.  This allows us to see the movement, concentrate on the threat, and engage if needed.  

There is more that can be talked about, but these are the two biggest points that I can think of off the top of my head.