And speaking of home defense type stuff...
I just got a Lenser flashlight at Home Depot last week. 95 lumens of blinding white LED light. It will seriously hurt someone's eyes if you shine it there. Cost about $34 bucks and is no bigger than the wimpy LED flashlights that you can pick up anywhere now for less than $10.
I have since done a little looking on the web and found that Lenser flashlights are available in much higher lumen outputs for not much more cash.
This one, for instance, puts out 220 lumens (hurts my eyes just thinking about that) for $80 bucks. Or
this one that does 167 lumens for about $65 bucks.
And then there are lasers. I like
these. The E2 series puts out up to 100mW of power for about $50 bucks. That's pretty damned good when you consider that most of the pointers you see are outputting somewhere south of 5mW to 10mW. They even have ones that will pop balloons and light fires if you need something really macho. Anyway, strap one of these to your gun and you may not need to shoot it.
BTW...If you are searching for the absolute most powerful flashlight there is then look no further than Wicked Lasers. They have one with the ridiculous output of 4100 lumens for around $200 bucks. It will burn paper and light matches and, of course, fry eyeballs. Besides the hefty price, the downside is that battery life for this monster is only about five minutes. So not exactly practical, just for those who insist on having the biggest stick in any group.
Another thought... you could almost certainly get one of these things past TSA security and it would be a potent defense against terrorists on an airplane. I'm not kidding. A hundred lumens in the eyes really, really hurts. I can only imagine the pain caused by over 200 lumens. And the lasers? Don't even go there.
Just for fun: Have a look at
this.