Did they even need to say that it was a GLOCK?

[dihappy]

I can't deny that those who practice good safety habits, won't cause accidents, the problem is every one thinks they are safe, and Glocks just seem to be involved with this type of thing more often than any other gun.

Gee... Do you think that that could possibly be because Glocks are one of, if not the, most popular handguns on the market and in the home in America today? If there are more of them in use, then there will, statistically speaking, be more of them mis-used, as well. As we so often say when confronting the Brady bunch, "Don't blame the tool for what some idiot did with it."

Nah, i think that if your not thinking and pull the trigger, its going off.

or,

If your trying to catch it cuz it fell, you just may shoot someone, or yourself.


HIGHLY unlikely to happen with a 1911 or double action with safety/decocker.

Just a fact.

[Liberty]

and Most guns won't go off while disassembling even though there is a round in the chamber. Having to pull the trigger to disassemble just increases the odds of an accident.

If one doesn't understand the extra hazzard of these handguns they are even more dangerous.

[Purplehood]

and Most guns won't go off while disassembling even though there is a round in the chamber. Having to pull the trigger to disassemble just increases the odds of an accident.

If one doesn't understand the extra hazzard of these handguns they are even more dangerous.

Extra hazard? OMG. All weapons are considered loaded in the first place! You double-check, THEN you disassemble.

[Liberty]

and Most guns won't go off while disassembling even though there is a round in the chamber. Having to pull the trigger to disassemble just increases the odds of an accident.

If one doesn't understand the extra hazzard of these handguns they are even more dangerous.

Extra hazard? OMG. All weapons are considered loaded in the first place! You double-check, THEN you disassemble.

Of course you should. I hope that no one thought I was suggesting otherwise.

[TX Rancher]

All firearms are inherently dangerous…they are designed that way based on their primary purpose for existence.

Would a Glock be inherently safer if you didn’t have to pull the trigger to disassemble it…of course it would. But before I would ask the Glock design engineers to change it I would ask why it ended up that way. These are some pretty smart folks and you can bet somewhere along the line during development someone brought up the question of safety (at a minimum you can bet their legal team did). But the final decision was to leave it as designed.

During my time working for the government I saw plenty of agents who discovered that sometime during the day they had inadvertently hit their 1911 safeties and they were carrying a very live weapon . There were also times folks just forgot to put the safeties on…I saw it all the time with the ubiquitous M16, folks running around with a hot weapon slung over their shoulder. Talk about a dangerous situation! At least with the 1911 they were in a holster with the trigger covered.

What’s amazing is there are so few accidents…or at least so few that get reported in the press.

In all potentially dangerous tools there is always the discussion of what is safe enough. Do we have to put enough “safeties” on a circular saw that even an idiot can’t cut their fingers off? Or do we draw a line between ultimate safety and the purpose for which the tool is being designed. Should the lowest common denominator (the idiot) set the bar for safety devices or should it be the average? Where should the line be drawn?

This is an exceptionally hard line to draw when we’re talking about a self defense weapon where potentially speed is life…where fractions of a second can be the dividing line between winning and losing.

If the time it takes you to disengage a safety causes you to lose a fight, or you miss on the first shot due to a DA trigger and never get a second shot off, I suspect in the afterlife you would question the decision to add those additional “safety” factors.

Of course the same can be said if the lack of those safety devices led to you killing yourself or a loved one. You would then be questioning the design that didn’t have the additional safety factors.

But accidents related to the lack of layered safeties are very small compared to the number of folks that carry firearms. Does this really happen enough that we need to force design changes and what design changes do we make? Do we force manual safeties on all pistols? Do we outlaw DA triggers and get rid of all manual safeties? Do we force bio-metric safeties to be installed? What about a breathalyzer?

As others have stated, there are gun handling rules that would have avoided this incident and they were not followed. Actually, you can forget about all the rules except for the last one and you still won’t hurt anyone…if the weapon is not pointed at anything you don’t won’t to destroy when you pull the trigger, no one will be hurt. The chief could have ignored all the rules except this one and all he would have had was egg on his face, ringing in his ears, and a hole in something minor.

I personally think weapons such as the Glock’s and XD’s are “safe enough” as long as you take their limitations into account.

For instance, srothstein brought up the point that some folks were trained to re-holster one handed without looking at the holster. I fall into that category. But since anything that gets inside the trigger guard can conceivably fire a Glock while re-holstering (jacket, shirt, thumb flap, etc) I’ve retrained myself to be extra aware during re-holstering.

To me it ultimately comes down to the best, most reliable safety to engage when working with current day firearms is your brain…no mechanical safeties can compare.

[Texian]

Would a Glock be inherently safer if you didn’t have to pull the trigger to disassemble it…of course it would. But before I would ask the Glock design engineers to change it I would ask why it ended up that way. These are some pretty smart folks and you can bet somewhere along the line during development someone brought up the question of safety (at a minimum you can bet their legal team did). But the final decision was to leave it as designed.

[emphasis added]

When I started this thread I was going to ask a question of the members but then changed my mind because I wanted to see if anyone else would ask it; but no one really asked the exact question that was on my mind, though TX Rancher came close.

The question: What would have been the downside of providing a sear disconnect as on the S&W M&P pistols? The only answers that I can think of are: 1) It would have added a small bit of complexity to the pistol by adding parts and possibly adversely affecting reliability, and 2) It would have increased manufacturing costs (by what amount I don't know) and possibly affected their ability to command the lions share of LE sales by keeping costs at an absolute minimum, allowing GLOCK to underbid other high quality manufacturers.

The GLOCK is accurate, reliable in harsh conditions, durable, simple in design with a minimum of parts and it is affordable. But, it requires even greater attention to safety than many other designs. I don't own one. I considered the GLOCK because of the above fine attributes but I rejected it because of ergonomics--admittedly a highly subjective point. If it doesn't fit my hand, balance and point naturally, then I have to look elsewhere regardless of how many other fine points it might possess.

Anyone want to give me their thoughts on the question?