I apologize ahead of time for any vagueness, omissions, or mistakes in the AAR, as my notes are a bit incomplete, as a large amount of discussion arose organically and not as a set part of the class curriculum. Also note that this AAR has been sanitized at the instructors’ request, for OPSEC reasons, given that this AAR is freely available to anyone.
One can not predict when bad things happen, so the probability of finding yourself in a situation that needs to be addressed at night with or without the use of force is pretty high. But rarely are there opportunities to get that practice and training in that environment until now. Having worked the streets and hostile environments, we understand the importance of regular low light and night time training. The dynamics of a dark environment adds additional problems which are not encountered in normal daylight or lighting. The environment in which the light source will be used in, the type of light (hand held or weapon mounted), different techniques, as well as a breakdown of ones shooting fundamentals while employing such devices all adds to the complexity of low light/night time tactics and skill applications. This is where learning how to properly employ such devices and gaining experience in low light environments can make the difference of effectively taking care of a problem or becoming a liability.
Active shooter incidents are fast, chaotic, and over in most incidences before law enforcement make initial contact with the shooter. That means a CHL (Concealed Handgun License) or legally armed citizen could be the difference in lives saved if confronted with such a scenario. Or, it could mean that you have no other choice but to confront the threat as the threat is what stands between you and your family while trying to escape. Statistics show that most “Active shooting incidents” happen in large, public venues where there are large numbers of unarmed and unprepared people. That being said, the dynamics of a potential active shooter incident could prove to be overwhelming and deadly if not properly prepared. Either way, do you really know what you would do or how to go about handling such a situation if ever confronted with such a scenario? Our Active Shooter Response class breaks down the issues and tactical considerations that one should consider before or after intervening in such an incident. One should truly be prepared to make an educated decision as to the proper and best response to such violence rather than being a liability to themselves or others.
This was my second course to incorporate a large amount of low-light training. I had previously taken a low-light pistol course with Kenan Flasowski (former SFOD-D, a truly underrated instructor), along with various pistol manipulation courses with Larry Vickers and Todd Louis Green, and a pistol-oriented combatives type course with Craig Douglas. I used an H&K P30LS with the Grayguns Reduced Reset Carry Perfection Package carried in condition 1, with an X400 Ultra - Green laser mounted with the DG-11 and zeroed for 25 yards. For all holster manipulation drills, I appendix carried the P30LS using a slightly modified RCS Phantom at about the 0130 position; for the portions of the class where there was no manipulation and all drills started with gun in hand, I used a Safariland 6004-39512. I carried the magazines using Kytex Shooting Gear open top magazine carriers, and had Taylor Freelance Border Special +5 magazine extensions (with the aftermarket springs) on all magazines. My handheld was the Surefire E1B, slightly modified with a zip tie and two Scünci No Damage elastic hair bands to form a jury rigged lanyard. Besides the usage of the Safariland at times and the addition of a second magazine carrier, my set-up was identical to my EDC: t-shirt with relatively form-fitting jeans, The Wilderness Ti Instructor belt, SFB, folder, phone, etc.
Lee Vernon and Christopher Gray were the primary instructors. Class started at 1200; weather alternated between sunny and cloudy, with a fair bit of wind; temperature started at about 75 °F and dropped to about 60 °F at night. Sunset was approximately 2000, with a large full moon that was semi-obscured by light cloud cover. There was 11 students, all civilians, with one former LEO. Most guns were Glocks, with an M&P, a 1911 of some sort, Beretta PX4 Storm, a Springfield XD, and my H&K. Holster positions were mostly strong side, both IWB and OWB, with a couple of appendix, though I was the only one that used a cover garment consistently for that position, and one of the few to consistently use a cover garment at all. Several students used a SERPA, which was noted by the instructors, and the users were reminded to be exceedingly careful on the draw, especially when under stress. The students brought various types of lights, ranging from no-name Sam's Club purchases to a couple of Surefires and Streamlights; I was the only one running a WML and only one with a laser. To my knowledge, very few of the students had done any serious training besides myself and one other student, though most had gone through at least one basic class with local trainers or with Front Sight.
The class started out with a quick overview of how everything would go on the first day, with the class starting with some fundamentals in order to get a baseline down for each person's performance, before moving toward the low-light tactics portion of the course. It was stated that this class would have minimal emphasis on manipulations, as it was primarily a tactics course, and that it was expected that everyone had a solid weapons manipulation foundation. After having each student do a quick intro, the instructors introduced themselves.
Lee's firearms background consists purely of private training and courses, but he is also paid firefighter and EMT. Being a first responder, Lee has been able to see the aftermath of many incidents, and has been able to take away lessons from them. He had been teaching for 6 years at this point; he noted that most firearms classes were rarely put in the proper context of the realities of self-defense, and instead only offered manipulation instruction. This was not to disparage the manipulations courses, as a solid manipulations foundation is necessary in order to perform under stress, but to try to get across to the students that having great weapons manipulations skills is only one piece of the puzzle when it came to self-defense.
I had previously met Lee through two ShivWorks classes, as a fellow student. My positive interactions with him at the classes, coupled with my desire to brush up on low-light skills and a convenient break in my firefighting training, is what got me to sign up for this class.
Chris was in the US Army as a 95C before joining a major central TX metropolitan PD, where he has been for the last 16 years. He has worked UC, patrol, and even on a bicycle. He has been an instructor for the department before, and has been with Lee for two years at this point. Much of the curriculum, particularly the active shooter portion, was be derived from various training courses that Chris had received, along with his years of experience as an LEO. He notes that simply because an act is legally justified doesn't mean absolute protection from a civil suit; being able to articulate and justify one's actions is incredibly important in the aftermath of an incident, which ties into the ability to have more than simply manipulations skills.
The first lecture of the day was an overview of mindset. Before that, though, a key idea was introduced: threat recognition trumped target acquisition/engagement. Being technically proficient with the firearm meant little if one was unable to distinguish a threat, and arguably a detriment if one went as far as misidentifying a non-hostile as a hostile and engaged an innocent. As for mindset, Chris went over several key points. The first was the question of "Why?". Why were the students in this class? The overwhelming answer was the idea of being able to protect one self and one's family. Next was the concept of "if vs. when". As a general rule, the "if" is answered before the "when". Also, by asking "when" rather than "if", one would already have a plan in place to execute "when" an incident occurred, while if one was thinking in terms of "if", a plan may not be formulated at all, since there is the expectation that an incident may never occur. The next idea was the simple fact that "hope paralyzes". When one only uses hope, no actions will occur, no initiative taken; this is generally seen as being an exceedingly poor course of action. After that was the concept of being a feeder, rather than a receiver. The idea here is to be the one feeding stress to the opposition, rather than being on the receiving end. Tied to this concept is the OODA loop; by disrupting the opponent's OODA loop, while keeping one's own loop going, one is the feeder, while the opponent is the receiver. As a side note, Chris noted that the "oriented" part of the OODA loop is often misconstrued as being a simple physical act of turning toward the threat, rather than the actual meaning of finding one's position both mentally and physically in response to a threat. Following that was the question of "if not me, who". Chris noted that the typical active shooter incident lasted 1 to 7 minutes, while typical LEO response times in a metropolitan area was 5 to 7 minutes. The incidents almost always end in three ways: suicide of the active shooter, intervention by an armed civilian, or else the arrival of LEOs. The final idea was the idea of success, or rather, how to achieve it. In this case, Chris used the acronym TWDH: Think, Words, Deed, Habit. Think and Words are what drive us to train, while Deed reference the training/learning cycle itself, and Habit refers the sustainment part, where what is done is practiced regularly and made into a habit. As a final statement, Chris reminded us that we have only the rest of our lives to train.
I had already been exposed to most of the concepts discussed through prior training and exposure to the material online; however, given the demographics of the class, I think a fair number of them saw this as relatively novel material. One of the points brought up was the question of intervention on the behalf of others, and just how important that was. A classic pitfall of many mindset lectures I've seen is the idea of intervention at all costs, as if the training that we receive automatically burdened us to protect those that do not train, which Chris avoided handily, explaining that we all have different priorities and moral codes, so the decision to intervene is strictly up to the individual.
Now that the mindset lecture was over, we went over the 4 rules of firearms, just as a precaution, even though everyone claimed they already knew the rules. We then went over a quick overview of medical procedures in case anyone suffered an injury; in the event of an injury, Lee would take the lead, while I was tasked to be the secondary (due to my recent first responder training). A designated 911 caller was always found. Before heading up to the line, it was stated that if anybody felt uncomfortable with their skill levels in performing a certain drill, accommodations would be made.
We then headed up to the line for the first drill of the day. At the line, a student had a question about reloading, in particular, the question of whether to keep the gun in the workspace or fully extended. The idea behind the latter is to keep the opponent from realizing that one is out of ammo, since the gun is still out at extension, but as Chris noted, the opponent will probably come to that conclusion when the shooting stops, regardless of whether or not the gun was out at extension. On the other hand, keeping the gun out at extension makes the actual act of reloading slower and more difficult, particularly if movement is involved. By getting the gun up in the workspace and glancing down during the reload, especially if a visual mark has been created inside the magwell to help with alignment, the reload goes much faster, and the gun gets back into the fight much quicker. The next query dealt with tactical reloads, to which the reply was the dreaded "situational dependent". After that, we stepped up to the 3 yard line, where Chris stated that 71% of deaths from a firearm occurred within 10 feet, 50% within 5 feet, and 63% occurred in low-light periods of the day. Using a shot timer as a way to both to start the drill and to keep track of class performance, we then shot the first drill: draw the gun from the holster and put 1 round in the A-zone (COM on the IDPA target), then scan and assess. This was done for one full magazine. After the drill was through, and everyone was holstered, the line would be declared cold, which we were to repeat.
Interestingly, it was stated during this drill that there was no need for a very tight group, so long as all the shots were inside the A-zone, and that having a very tight group indicated that one was taking too long to shoot. If anything, having a looser grouping would be more beneficial, as this would spread out the trauma. I discussed this with Lee after the end of the class on the second day; I have heard the idea of "spreading trauma", but almost always in a negative context, as an excuse for sloppy marksmanship during training. After all, groups will naturally open up when under stress, and allowing for sloppy groups when under minimal stress did not seem to be a good idea to me. On the other hand, I do think it's okay to miss sometimes during training if one is trying to push one's self in terms of splits and the like, as stated by Todd Louis Green, so having a loose grouping during training is not automatically a bad thing. It was stated multiple times through the class that one should take the shot if and only if one was absolutely confident in being able to get the hit, and that one should not be going so fast as to miss the target. Lee also said that, this was primarily a tactics class, and that the balance between speed and precision was discussed in their weapons manipulation class much more in-depth. I suppose the primary source of my misgivings comes from the fact that it seems that it would be easy to take the statements out of context; my understanding of what Lee was trying to get across is that the idea is to push one's self as fast as one can to get hits in the A-zone, and having a loose grouping is hardly an issue so long as all the shots are within the A-zone, since the vitals are all in there anyway. However, I don't think it'd be a stretch to think that some of the students would take that statement to mean that they need only to train themselves to be only as accurate as hitting the A-zone while going fast but under no stress, which would mean that under stress, many of their shots would be outside the A-zone. A question of training philosophies, I suppose.
In Lee's own words: “The above in which I referenced ‘speed vs precision’ has to do with the fact that there is a time and place in which the situation will dictate which method is going to be used. When we are close in and time is of the essence, one does not have the opportunity to use sights as our brain is processing that information at such as fast rate that our bodies typically will not see the sights, rather I need to get combat accurate hits extremely fast. At the distances, which are typical for most defensive shootings, time is usually not a commodity and if the three fundamentals of shooting are used, one can have 100% combat accurate hits. I am not saying that you do not use your sight picture,you’re just not using the actual sights of the gun in most cases. Rather I am using a hard sight picture of the target. I highly recommend reading the most recent version of Rob Pincus’s Combat Focus Shooting as it goes into more detail about the science of all this.”
As for my performance on the drill, I had a two or three flubs clearing the cover garment, slowing me down by half a second; I also had a single FTE, which I quickly cleared with a tap-rack-bang. Because the target zone was so large, I used only my laser; the green was most definitely daylight visible at this range, compared to the old red laser X400 I had.
After the first drill, it was noted that all the students seemed to be fairly proficient at shooting at the target, and that most people's foundation were fairly good. There was a quick review of stance and grip. Stance-wise, the idea is to keep the hips and feet square to the target, maximizing stability. Grip-wise, the strong hand should be as high up on the backstrap as possible for recoil control, the support hand should fill up all the space on the support side of the grip of the pistol, and the thumbs should be forward. Chris noted that besides the fact that the isosceles grip is what's natural and instinctive under stress, it also means that any hits one takes is generally going to do less damage, since a bullet would pass through from front to back, and thus only one or two organs, rather than the bladed Weaver, which is much more likely to have multiple organ hits with one bullet. It was also at this point that the SERPAs were noted and the users told about possible issues. The drill was then repeated again, with the attempt to hit the target in less than 2 seconds; each student went by themselves to give individual performance metrics. The drill was then repeated with everyone on the line, except this time with a 2 inch circle for a target, once again a full magazine.
The smaller target, coupled with the large offset of the laser at 3 yards, meant I switched over to my iron sights, which I had little issue with, though I was slightly slowed by my eyes being draw to the laser initially. IIRC, I was still getting good hits on the 2 inch circle in under 2 seconds.
The next drill was over reloads. Chris gave a quick explanation of reloads (much of which was covered by the previous question posed by the student); he stated that he preferred to use the slide release, and that while it was indeed a fine motor movement, so was pulling the trigger and hitting the magazine release in the first place. That being said, if a student was more comfortable using the "monkey paw" (power stroke; this was Lee’s preferred method, due to his small hands), that was fine, too. The other key thing to do was to move laterally ("getting off the X") when reloading, to complicate any return fire. As for tactical reloads, Chris preferred to simply do a speed reload, and then picking up the dropped magazine if there was time, rather than doing the more complicated reload with retention, thus minimizing complexity. We then partnered up, giving our partners our magazines, and having them load 1, 2, or 3 rounds into our magazines, and then handing them back to us, having us load blind or loading for us, so that we didn't know how many rounds were in the gun. We then drew and shot from the 3 yard line into the A-zone, emptying all of our magazines each time, reloading as needed. This drill was repeated 3 times.
No issues here, besides the incorporation of the side-step; I would sometimes step before reloading, or else after, will need to work on consistency.
At this point, ~1400, we had a short lunch break at the range.
After the break, we started to go over the low-light material. First, the question Chris posed was, what was the purpose of the light? A light great for room clearing may be poor at searching; complex switchology may be useful on an EDC light, where multiple modes can be reached without stress or issue, but could be a huge liability in an armed encounter; essentially, one had to define what the mission of the light was when picking one out. Lee personally preferred a momentary-only light with a single high mode. Also, in their experience, they felt that a 300 lumen light was generally sufficient to complete overwhelm an aggressor's vision in low-light situations (not that higher lumen lights were detrimental), provided one was putting the hot spot right in the aggressor's face. Another thing to consider the usage of the Surefire Combat Rings (or other analogous pieces of gear, e.g., Thyrm Switchback), and the compatibility of one's light with them, of which Lee and Chris were both big fans of.
I was already aware of the limitations of my E1B, which were clearly illustrated to me during my first low-light course; the click-on, click-off made light discipline a little more complicated, and the high/low settings definitely made illumination trickier when flashing on and off. However, for me, the EDC utility of the light outweighed the negatives of its usage in tactical scenarios, especially since illumination during shooting was accomplished with my WML, rather than the handheld (my SOP is to search with the E1B, and then when a target is identified, turn the light off, drop it and allow the lanyard to retain it for me, and then utilize the WML on the pistol to illuminate the target while engaging with a solid two-handed grip).
We then moved on to the basic concepts of lighting conditions. As a general rule, one wants to be in an area where one can control the lighting, e.g., being indoors and controlling the lights, versus an area where one could not, such as office lighting or sunlight. Also, it is generally better to keep the area darker if one is able to control the lighting, until light is actually needed. Chris also went over some terminology about various lighting conditions.
After that, Chris went over four basic ways to hold the light while shooting. As he noted, in order to evaluate the effectiveness of a particular grip, one should first be aware of the three things that must be aligned in order to hit the target under low-light: the light, the eyes, and the gun. The first grip was the FBI: support hand up and away from the body. The primary advantage of this method is that by keeping the light away from the body, any fire drawn by the light should, in theory, be unlikely to hit the user of the light, and is the only light position that affords this possible protection. Unfortunately, this also means that the light is far away from the eyes and gun, making it more difficult to align with the other two, along with the fact that this position is totally unsupported one-handed shooting. The second method was the neck index: light right next to the jawline, usually using the knuckles on the support hand to index against the jawline. Unlike the FBI position, this brings the light in line with the eyes. However, besides the obvious risk of drawing fire around the head, it also suffers from completely unsupported one-hand shooting. Harries was discussed next: the support hand goes under, and curls up to provide a measure of stability. This position aligns the light with the gun quite well, and offers better support than neck index and FBI for shooting. The chief downside observed by Chris is that, when moving the light from a search position of Harries, those without much practice/training will often muzzle themselves as they try to get the light in the proper position. Finally, there is the syringe method, of which there were three variants; this is the only method in which the light is not held with an ice pick grip, and requires an exposed tail cap button to work. In the first variant, the head or body of the light is tucked between two fingers on the support side, with the tail cap button resting on the fleshy part of the palm, so that pushing back with the fingers turns the light on. The support hand is thus curled up in almost a fist, and put next to the grip of the gun, help filling out the empty space, and providing minor support. In the second variant, the same thing is done, but the support hand actually wraps around the gun a bit; this works only if one's hands are large enough, and so Chris had difficulties demoing this, due to hand size. The last method requires the usage of the Surefire Combat Rings; using the rings to retain the light, the tail cap button is now against the outer knuckles of the support hand, and is activated via tension on the ring driving the light back. This variant allows for essentially a full two-handed grip on the pistol, and is the closest thing to a WML when using a handheld. The downsides to the third variant is that one needs the rings to make it work (which adds bulk to the light) and that one cannot search using the ice pick grip (which is somewhat more intuitive, though hardly a pressing concern). A student then asked about WMLs; Chris stated that WMLs are useful in niche roles, particularly when forced to do one-handed manipulations, but they should not be used for searching, which greatly limits their utility. He is also very much against the usage of the pressure switches on WML for pistols, e.g., the Surefire DG switches or Streamlight Contour Remotes, as there are issues with sympathetic responses, i.e., accidentally pulling the trigger when simply trying to activate the light. For the same reason, he strongly advocates the usage of the support hand thumb to toggle a WML, as opposed to using the trigger finger. As for lasers, they are like WMLs, useful for niche applications, particularly in unorthodox shooting positions. Night sights were also briefly discussed, but largely dismissed, due to the need to use a light to PID/see a target when engaging it, which would thus provide sufficient lighting to use even solid black sights.
I felt that the finer points of Harries might have been glossed over, although I can't be sure, since I've had minimal exposure to it. I was mostly curious as to whether or not they had any particular insight, since I've heard from Darryl Bolke, who had trained extensively with Michael Harries, that the technique is often misunderstood. I also obviously disagreed with Chris's assessment of the DG switch, since that was my primary method of WML activation; speaking with him later between drills, he agreed that for the most part, the DG switch sympathetic activation was a training issue, and that if one trained to be proficient with it, no issues. It also sounded like he was more concerned with people trying to activate the WML when their normal grip wouldn't be enough to activate the DG switch, while I have mine set up so that a normal grip automatically turns the WML on, and I have to actively loosen my grip to turn the WML off (most of the time, anyway, assuming I didn't have a sloppy draw).
After inspecting the various lights and Combat Rings that were provided for our use for the class (several people tried out the Combat Rings), we then headed up to the three yard line, where we started with the gun drawn. The instructor would call out a technique, and we would engage using that technique, firing multiple rounds as we deemed necessary. It was asked here whether or not blading would help significantly with SHO shooting; Chris demoed himself shooting at a decent clip using just the thumb and trigger finger, demonstrating that the blading would be of minimal use, considering the fairly mild recoil of a pistol in the first place.
This drill reinforced to myself just how much I disliked having to utilize just the handheld for shooting. It was also vaguely comical trying these techniques out in the afternoon, since we could not see the light from the handhelds on the targets, but that's the nature of the beast, given how late the sunsets at this time of year.
Chris then went over the basics of clearing a room in low-light conditions, both single man and two-man, though it was clearly stated that the two-man clear is most likely of minimal use to civilians.
There was no drawing for the rest of the class for the day, so I switched over from appendix to drop-leg carry at this point for the sake of comfort and ease of reholstering (I am aware of the limitations of the drop-leg set up, will be changing to a battle belt set-up once my battle belt arrives) for all of the room clearing drills. I would search with the FBI position with the gun in a thumb pectoral index; upon identifying a threat, I would drop the handheld and engage with a two-handed grip. Lee noted that this was generally slightly slower than simply going with SHO shooting, and that I would need to determine if the increase in accuracy and recoil control was worth the extra time needed to start delivering rounds on target. I also had yet another FTE at the end of one run, this one cleared by simply putting in a new mag, as it was the last round in the magazine.
We then went to the final drill of the day, which was run one by one. First, each person starts off by doing some rigorous calisthenics to get the heart rate going. After that, one has to clear two rooms of hostile targets (in low-light conditions, of course), all while the instructors are verbally harassing one and asking various questions.
My first run was an utter disaster. I had yet another FTE on the last round of a mag, which I attempted to clear by simply placing in a new mag. However, the new mag simply refused to feed, and both tap-rack-bang and the rip drill failed to clear my malfunction. Upon inspection, it was seen that the magazine follower was totally bound up, thus not feeding anything. I did not have another magazine on my person, so I had to go retrieve more magazines and wait until the end to try again. My second run went quite well, though. The only failure I had was that I maneuvered around a no-shoot to engage a target, rather than simply pushing the no-shoot out the way.
The class ended at this time, at around 2230.
This was by far the most malfunctions I had ever experienced with the gun. After I got home, I inspected the extractor, which showed that it was totally caked with carbon build-up, enough that the shape of the extractor no longer even resembled a hook; the slide was also almost bone dry, devoid of lube; it was my own fault for failing to clean and lube the gun, as it had been over 2500 rounds and close to a year since I had done that. As for the magazine, after disassembly, I removed a very large quantity of fine sand which had accumulated in the extensions, which was almost like talc in consistency; I was reminded of Paul Howe's newsletter where he stated he had similar issues with his Glock 32, though he could not get his Glock 19 fail in the same manner. After cleaning the extractor, adding some Slip 2000 EWL on the rail guides of the slide, and blowing out the sand of magazines that I drop before stuffing them again, I had zero issues the next day, which actually had far more shooting.