Turn Your Handgun Into An Effective Home Defense Tool

Turn Your Handgun Into An Effective Home Defense Tool

When it comes to home defense, cheating is an acceptable, and desirable, strategy. If you’re ever forced to defend your loved ones in your home, and you find yourself in a fair fight, you tactics suck, or so the saying goes.

Put into more practical and actionable terms, when preparing your home defense strategy, it makes sense to identify all reasonable advantages and put them into action.


One big advantage you can easily implement is the addition of lights and lasers to your home defense gun. Neither of these tools replaces good gun handling technique nor are they designed to. They are designed to give you more options in a bad situation.

Benefits of a lasers

A laser gives you more aiming options. It’s as simple as that. Especially in low light or dark conditions, you will see exactly where your shot will impact, assuming you pull the trigger correctly.

Use of a laser supports the natural tendency we have to focus on the danger when we’re threatened. Yes, lot’s of training will teach one to revert concentration back to the sights when ready to fire, but the brain’s desire to focus on a threat is a powerful habit to overcome. When using a laser, you can focus on the threat and aim at the same time.

A laser also provides flexibility in shooting positions. When using standard sights, the gun must, by definition, be up high and right in front of your eyes. Using a laser, you can safely and accurately fire from more unconventional positions where the gun is lower and not blocking your direct vision. In night training exercises I’ve done, I’ve found that ability to search, with your gun held lower out of your sight, makes a big difference in overall situational visibility.

Benefits of a weapon mounted light

Should you ever find yourself in the unfortunate situation of hearing the proverbial bump in the night, it will be dark. Funny how that works isn’t it?

Darkness and handguns don’t work well together, even if you have fancy tritium night sights on yours. While you might see your sights glowing, you really don’t have a clear view of what you should or, more importantly, should not shoot at. A weapon-mounted light gives you the ability to see clearly what’s in front of your muzzle, and that’s crucial information to have before you pull the trigger. Even though a weapon mounted-light faces forward, it will help you see regular (non-tritium) sights too.

A pistol-mounted light is not intended to replace a handheld light. A handheld light is for searching and a weapon mounted light is for shooting. It’s as simple as that. Remember Rule 3? Never point your gun at anything you’re not willing to destroy. If you’re using your weapon light to look around, you are, by definition, pointing your gun at unknown things. Since they’re unknown, you’re not sure if you’re willing to destroy them, right?

How to add light and/or laser capability to your Beretta

For purposes of this discussion, since we’re talking about home defense applications, I’ll limit this to medium and full size handguns. A home defense gun can be larger, and, therefore, easier to aim, fire and control recoil, than a pocket carry gun. Larger guns generally give you more accessory mounting options like rails.
Beretta PX4

Speaking of rails, all PX4 Storm handguns have them, so you can mount a laser, light or both. LASERWIN offers Rail lasers & Rail Laser Light and the new  dual beam green red laser. While the Rail Master light and lasers are a “pick one” option, since you only have one rail, the Rail laser light 2HY06 houses both a 450 lumen tactical light and your choice of red or green laser in the same rail mounted unit. You activate the light and laser with paddles positioned on both sides of the trigger guard, so can turn them on or off at will. The body is aluminum and built like a tank, so you don’t have to worry about babying it. I’ve been testing the Rail Master Pro my a Beretta PX4 .40 S&W and it’s a great solution.

All of the PX4 models, full size, compact and even subcompact have rails, so adding a light and laser is easy.


If you have a pistol in the 92/96/M9 family, you might have additional options for separate light and laser solutions.

The standard 92, 96 and M9 models have a smooth dust cover (no tactical rail) but you can add Crimson Trace lasergrips to virtually any of those models. The Crimson Trace LG-302 or LG-402M lasergrips will fit Beretta 92, 96 and M9A1 large frame pistols, including the Centurion, Elite II and Brigadier models.

If you prefer the ability to activate your laser at will, check out the LaserMax guide rod laser solution for these models.

If you have an A1 series pistol, like the 92A1, 96A1 or M9A1, you have a rail to work with. Of course, you can go with a rail mounted combination unit like we discussed for the PX4. You can also choose to split your laser and light functions by mounting a light only on the rail, and using Crimson Trace Lasergrips. This approach may give you a little more flexibility as you can independently activate the light, laser or both.
Closing thoughts

A lot of folks get all wrapped around the axle about lights and lasers. Some are concerned that they make people reliant on them at the expense of skill development using traditional sights.

I look at the situation differently. To me, lights and lasers add capability and options. They don’t replace functionality or skills already in place.

Why not take advantage of every opportunity to stack the deck in your favor?

Laser Mounting and Zeroing

Laser Mounting and Zeroing of laser gun sight

These days, you can't swing a dead opossum without hitting visible-laser options for most handguns and tactical rifles. Once relegated to a high-dollar clientele only, they're now standard and affordable accessories. Although I don't currently use lasers, I employed them heavily while playing the Special Operations game. I usually used infrared (IR) lasers that required night vision equipment, since visible lasers let bad guys know where you are. Occasionally, I trained with visible lasers on handguns, but my use of IR lasers was specific to shoulder-fired weapons. In those days, visible lasers weren't strong enough to reach rifle ranges, but that's no longer the case.

As civilians, we're unable to legally own IR lasers, so visible is the only option. Some green-laser manufacturers claim to be able to project an aiming point to 1,000+ yards at night, raising them to a new level of utility. Here are a few things I learned about mounting and zeroing IR devices that can be applied to this longer-range class of visible lasers as well.

MountingA laser's position on the rifle will affect several functional aspects, including manipulation of controls. Most tactical rifles have factory or add-on rails present, and all modern rifle lasers I've seen have rail mounts. If your laser has no remote capability, it should be positioned close enough to the support hand to allow easy manipulation of the controls without a dramatic shift in hand placement. Ideally, you'll want to be able to momentarily activate the laser on demand, without "burning" it constantly. This will both save battery life and reduce your signature. If you plan to leave the laser in place long-term, a mild thread-locker that creates fastener-friction will help the device remain in place during hard use. Be sure not to use any thread-locker that requires heat for removal. Polymer laser housings and sensitive electronics won't fare well under even short-term torch heat.

ZeroingBe conscious of where the laser's line (LL) is in relation to the line of bore (LOB) when choosing a mounting location. Just like a riflescope's line of sight, the LL and the LOB require a merging of sorts in order to place rounds on target. The closer they are on the rifle, the easier it is to zero the laser. Problems arise from the fact that the LL is usually offset from the LOB in a compound direction (i.e. up/down and left/right). Two popular zero methods are used to deal with this problem: Point of Aim/Point of Impact (POA/POI) and Offset. The POA/POI method is similar to that used for sight zeroing, in that you select the range where you want the LL to intersect with the bullet's POI and adjust windage and elevation accordingly. The problem with this method is the actual zero distance is the only place where they intersect. The further the projectile is from that zero distance (in either direction), the greater the deviation. Think of the LL and LOB forming a big "X" with the zero range being in the center. Realistic engagement distances are relatively limited with a laser, so this isn't a problem for most routine shooting. However, you still need to know how far off the projectile will be from the laser at different distances. I used this method in the Army, and it worked fine for shots out to 200 meters with 5.56 NATO and approximately 300 meters with .308 Win. Beyond those distances, I used different aiming devices for night shooting.

The offset (or parallel zero) method is commonly taught and used, but is often misunderstood. This technique requires you to measure the deviation from the LL to the LOB in direction and distance. The idea is to zero the laser at a specified range—usually 100 meters—so the LL (indicated by the laser's spot on target) is the same direction and distance (in inches) from the bullet's POI as the LL and LOB are on the gun. The theory usually given for this method is LL/POI deviation remains constant far enough out, the shooter need only hold slightly off of the intended POI and fire, regardless of distance. Unfortunately, we don't shoot in a vacuum, so gravity and atmospheric effects influence bullet flight paths to be anything but parallel to the LL. In other words, the bullet is going to drop farther and possibly be pushed by the wind from its zeroed POI as it continues downrange. So, the relationship between the LL and LOB zeroed-in at 100 meters is going to change with increased distance. If bullets flew the way lasers are projected, life would be much simpler for shooters.

A good partial remedy to both of the above methods' flaws is to mount the laser so that the LL is directly above or below the LOB. The result is that normal trajectory (without wind effects) will plot the POI directly above and below the visible laser's "spot" out to several hundred meters (before spin drift becomes a factor). It's much easier to account solely for elevation holds than for an elevation and windage divergence that changes with distance. Most military laser designs don't allow this due to their width, which makes me wonder why someone hasn't developed an offset mount to solve this problem.

One last trick is to use your zeroed iron or optical sights to quickly get your laser on target when zeroing. After both are zeroed, you can check one against the other to ensure nothing has changed from time to time. I recently tested a $200 green rifle laser that would not hold zero from one shot to the next. Don't trust literature, sales pitches or gun writers with your life. Test your laser's mounting and zero methods at multiple ranges in day and night conditions thoroughly before relying on it for real world needs.