Liberty wrote:What I find frustrating is the fading away of the traditional hammered SA/DA handgun. Thereseem to be fewer and fewer of them on the market, with DA being more common. I find the 1911 is just too finicky to trust especially the commander and subcompact models. Running enough defense ammo to build confidence enough to trust these things is can be an expensive proposition. I will likely buy a nice 1911 someday, but It would likely never be carried as a primary defense gun.
Glocks, to me, just don't have that margin of error for safety. An instinctive grab for a falling gun, or the quick wandering hands of a toddler are risks that concern me. I like the idea of a mechanical safety. Perhaps a holster with good retention would relieve me of some of my concerns. I am also uncomfortable with the concept of pulling the trigger to disassemble the gun.
Glocks and 1911s aren't bad guns, They just aren't the best choice for everyone.
I understand your concerns about the Glock, and it took me a while to get to the idea of the internal safeties that prevent a dropped Glock from discharging, and the idea of the trigger safety had to be overcome too. But in the end, I accepted that they work as advertised, and that's when I got comfortable with the idea of carrying one. I had to come to two conclusions:
(1) to never reflexively grab for a dropped gun....a scuffed finish is better than a bullet hole any day of the week;
and (2)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bTalnzcO0xk
As far as pulling the trigger to take down the gun...... yeah, if you don't follow procedure, you'll
possibly could shoot yourself. Did I ever tell you about the LAPD cop I helped to treat in our ER who had shot himself through the knee (top to bottom) with a 1911, ostensibly while cleaning his gun and sitting in his lazy boy with his feet up — ending his career as a cop? So.......
If you have a Glock, the procedure is very simple: unload AND CLEAR the gun. Verify clear with more than one rack of the slide. Set the magazine(s) and ejected cartridge aside - preferably in another room. Strip the gun. End of problem.
If that LAPD cop had followed procedure, he'd have had another 10-15 years as a cop - if he wanted it. Back when I was carrying 1911s exclusively, I used to make fun of Glock guys like Plaxico Burress who unintentionally shot himself......but then there is the famous YouTube video of the guy with a 1911 shooting himself in the thigh as he draws from a Serpa holster. And of course, who can forget the "DEA Gun Expert" who shoots himself in the foot in front of a bunch of impressionable children. Name a pistol platform, I'll probably find a YouTube video of someone ventilating himself with it. (Remember the guy with the pump action shotgun who looks down the muzzle of his "defective" shotgun, bangs the buttstock on the ground, and blow his hat off?)
ALL of these are cases of someone who did something stupid with a gun, and in MOST cases, it was having his booger hook in the bang switch when it didn't need to be or shouldn't have been. As far as kids go.... I have two grandbabies my wife and I babysit every day, and I have guns in the house. Right
now, they can't get to them, so I don't worry about it. When they get a little bigger, I'm going to have to change the way I do things - but that would be true whether the gun was a Glock or a 1911, right? So I don't see the problem here.
So, "this is my safety, sir", and that's how we do that.