Insert facepalm pic here.

Night sights are useful for anyone...no matter what their job happens to be...who needs an aiming reference for low light. Believe it or not, there are occasions when you can have enough light to identify a threat without a white light but you may be unable to get a useful sight picture.



What "self defense" shootings are you referring to? What is the informational basis for your claims?



...then you haven't been running the right drills to the right standards. If you think you'll be achieving 100% accuracy at 15 yards in low light on moving targets point shooting a handgun while on the move, you're sadly mistaken.



So you think "novices" jerk the hell out of the trigger in gunfights?



...so you really don't know much about gunfights, then.




Click style flashlights are the devil because they usually get left on...which makes you a target. Yes, lasers can make you a target if used improperly, but used properly they aren't turned on until you are prepping a shot.

I've said no such thing. In fact, I'm on record saying quite the opposite on a number of occasions...like in this thread:

http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=9&f=19&t=228378

Note the big picture that is posted first thing in the thread, which shows in big legible letters "Range: 10 yards or less"

The "ridiculous" bits remain your original assertions, namely:



So to illustrate what ridiculous truly is, let's examine those assertions carefully.



This tells me that your level of experience is fairly low, consisting mainly of square range practice under ideal conditions. Here's the problem: Gunfights don't happen from static positions against static targets under ideal lighting conditions. They generally happen in low light with the parties involved in the gunfight moving around quite a bit. Now there is a mountain of statistical evidence from organizations like the FBI that shows those facts to be true. There are also a large number of shootings on videotape that organizations like the FBI collect and study for the purpose of figuring out what happens in real gunfights.

The critical flaw in your thinking is that because you can make a hit somewhere on a target by point shooting under ideal conditions that your version of it is satisfactory for real world performance. It is not. In your "research" about gunfights you should have come across the fact that a large majority of shots fired in a gunfight miss the intended target. They miss for a number of reasons, but the biggest is because the dominant human instinct when presented with a threat is to point the gun in the general direction of the threat and pull the trigger until the bad man goes away. Those misses? All of those bullets end up somewhere, and if you launched it, you are going to have to answer for it. The police officer is generally indemnified against liability by his police department...are you indemnified against liability in the event of a shooting? Probably not. Of a more critical concern, misses do not stop the hostile actions of a criminal aggressor. Hits do, more specifically hits in vital organs. A missed shot is an extra opportunity for the bad guy to hurt you.

The difference between the person who makes the hits in a gunfight and the person who is completely out of control is: Training. Training is not just about the number of trigger pulls someone has under their belt, it's about the standards they hold themselves to and the quality of the assumptions that underlies the way they've ordered their preparation for a critical moment.



3 feet equals a yard. 30/3 = 10.

So you are telling me that at 10 yards you have 100% success (defined as never missing the intended target) under any circumstances when point shooting. This would include shooting on the move, shooting on the move at a moving target, shooting in low light/no light, shooting on the move in low light/no light, and shooting on the move on a moving target in low light/no light situations, right? Oh, and the target area is no bigger than the spread of your hand, right?

I doubt it. I doubt it because I've done all of that stuff and I've watched lots of other people do all that stuff and based on that experience, as well as the related experience of other people who are much smarter than me...people like this guy:



...as well as personally spending a not insignificant amount of time trying to shoot guns without a useful low-light aiming reference compared to guns with useful low-light aiming references, I've come to the definite conclusion that some sort of low light aiming reference beats the dickens out of having no low-light aiming reference when it comes to putting bullets on target. Properly arranged night sights or (even better) a good laser on a handgun give you the ability to have an accurate aiming reference while still maintaining your visual focus on a threat. You simply superimpose the glowing sights on the threat or put the dot on the threat and properly press the trigger to the rear and you're delivering lethally accurate fire.

Tight groups in bright daylight on the range matter because under conditions of stress you will not mimic your peak performance on the range. I'm not a gunfighter, but I've trained under a number of guys who are legitimately gunfighters. One is famous for saying that under conditions of stress the best trained shooters in the world will be lucky if their skill level degrades by only 50%. So take those tight groups and double them. To the person who is shooting accurately that doubling in group size will probably result in hits that are still acceptable. To the person who is just hanging them on paper, that doubling will result in misses.

If a person trains themselves to have some aiming reference...an imperfect iron sight picture, a laser, the fuzzy threat-focused night sight picture, or even the shilouette of the gun in some circumstances...then under stress they have a much higher likelihood of finding an acceptable aiming reference and making hits. If, however, they reason that people don't look at their sights in a gunfight and then improperly use that as a justification to avoid learning how the spectrum of sighting (especially as it relates to low light) works, then they are setting themselves up for failure.



This statement is just silly. I can show multiple videos of gunfights where both participants emptied their guns at each other at relatively close range with no hits...and the shooters weren't all "complete novices" either. Under the stress of a gunfight accuracy is no small order. It's hard. REALLY hard, even for the very well trained. The easier you can make the process of indexing the gun on target and breaking a shot properly, the better your odds are for actually hitting the threat in something important and hopefully ending the fight. The indexing on target bit is not helped by lacking a decent low light aiming reference. Simply trying to use the Force to direct bullets into the target does not work. I know because I've tried. It's an especially poor strategy in low light.



I think the underlying problem with your statements is probably your definition of "shoot it well". What I would consider "well" and what you would consider "well" are probably two totally different concepts.



The only people in "fantasy land" are those who have not bothered to study what happens in real fights and tried to orient their training to prepare for the realities that have been documented over and over again in statistical analysis, video footage, and the firsthand experience of people who have done the most gunfighting.



No, you said that they "couldn't hurt" and that they were "cool"...neither of which are true for a number of reasons. Any firearm you intend to use for serious social purposes NEEDS to have a low light aiming reference of some sort on it...preferably more than one. Whether that's a red dot, a laser, or night sights...it needs to be there, and you need to know how to use it because the stats tell us that when it comes time to actually use your firearm it will most likely be under conditions of low light. You also need to understand that circumstances will dictate the shot you take...not you. You won't get to pick what size target you will be required to hit in order to stop the threat, or how fast you'll have to hit it, or just about anything else in the fight. All of that will be dictated to you by circumstances.

If we want to talk "fantasy land", let's talk about the notion many people have that a gunfight is going to happen on their terms. THAT is a fantasy.



I've spent a considerable amount of time doing low light training, including high quality instruction from some of the world's leading experts. All of my carry guns carry some sort of low light aiming reference because in all that training I've tried to figure out the best way to ensure that I can put bullets where they need to go even in the dark. In that process I've learned some things...and consequently my equipment selection reflects lessons learned. Fifteen years ago my equipment selection would have probably looked a lot like yours...but I'm smarter than I was 15 years ago.