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GLOCKs  (courtesy pixshark.com)

TTAG commentator GA Koenig writes:

Christ, the gun world is full of so much self delusion and bullshit. In any other industry with stringent life-safety requirements (automotive, aerospace, medical equipment, etc.), the idea that a system with no secondary manual safety systems and a lightweight “go” button would be deemed irresponsible. There wouldn’t even be a debate about it, this would be considered so self evident that any engineer or industrial designer who crooned otherwise would be written off as some sort of an idiot . . .

But not in our firearm community! Nope. Instead here we get anecdotal evidence from single viewpoints – “I’ve carried a GLOCK since Gaston filed the patents, and I’ve never had an ND!” Or we get the alpha male peacock plumage quotes of some variation of that line from Blackhawk Down about “I am my own safety!” Because everyone in the gun world thinks they are some Combat Applications Group operator.

The reality is, when you start to issue millions of a thing (firearms, cars, sippy cups), you design around the basic idea that humans fuck stuff up sometimes. No matter how smart they are. No matter how well-trained they are. No matter how tough they are. The human brain is a highly unreliable thing with a repeat process failure rate that is simply pathetic.

That a bunch of puffed up gun guys like to lie to themselves and think otherwise is a burden on the entire community and industry. And I say that as a dude who carries a GLOCK. Let’s stop lying to ourselves; every other industry in the world has made significant (massive, actually) inroads into safety precisely because they ditched this attitude that persists amongst gun owners.

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174 COMMENTS

  1. People who are too *stupid* to keep their finger off the trigger are also too *stupid* to turn a damn safety off. Either way, idiots die.

    • It’s not just a question of being “too stupid” to keep the finger off the trigger. Have you ever holstered a gun and had a bit of your shirt or jacket get caught in holster on the way? Sure, you should be paying attention and I’m sure you always do it, but attend enough firearms classes with people of varying skill levels and you’ll see all kinds of mistakes.

      One advantage that a secondary safety has is that if you get in the habit of turning the safety off when you draw and re-engaging it right before you holster, you reduce the possibility of accidental discharge during holstering. Yes, I’m sure it’s never been a problem for you or anyone you know, but rest assured, it does happen.

      • This is why I like the concept of the grip safety like Springfield uses. Nothing you need to switch on/off, and something that should reduce NDs like that one police chief whose jacket drawstring got caught in the trigger guard and he shot himself in the leg (saw the video here on TTAG about a year ago, +/-).

        PS I also agree with Chip Bennett’s reply… statistically speaking, firearms are very safe, 350 million in circulation and what, 600 accidental deaths each year (and seemingly the typical accident victim is not the bearer of the firearm).

        • Exactly I’m constantly using the XD as an example because it’s a safety that’s not one you have to think about which is what Glock owners love about the trigger. Glock literally just needs to add a grip and boom same thing without any interference.

        • Dress around the gun.

          That means no clothes with drawstrings. Sorry if that’s your thing.

        • +1 on the Grip Safety. This is an example of progress being made by some parts of the gun industry. I’m quite fond of the passive safeties (rather than the manual ones).

        • I prefer a DA/SA with a hammer. Put your thumb on the hammer as you holster your piece. The hammer comes back if pressure is applied to the trigger and you have instant feedback to tell you to stop applying pressure. The “too light trigger” is also not a problem, the first trigger pull is heavy and the rest are lighter, OR you can pull the hammer back and they’re all relatively light.

          This solution works for me and I’m happy. Do what works for you.

        • Omer, I’ve always wondered, how do you put the hammer down if you decide not to pull the trigger?

        • “I’ve always wondered, how do you put the hammer down if you decide not to pull the trigger?”

          Well Bruce, there’s this thing called a Decocker, and despite the name it has no relation to Bruce Jenner. On a double-action automatic there’s typically a lever on the left of the slide, sometimes integrated with the safety, that safely decocks the hammer.

          Only dumbasses try to hold the hammer, pull the trigger, and hope that they can safely lower the released hammer. And only bigger dumb-asses try to lower the hammer on a loaded 1911.

        • I have an older Taurus 92, made before they had a decocking position on the safety. For me, it is an easy reach to put my thumb in between the cocked hammer and the slide. I can pull the trigger, and lower the hammer to the half cock notch while maintaining a block between metal to metal contact. Is it ideal? Absolutely not. But is it safe? Follow rule number one, and it is.

        • I wanted an FNx45 so bad and the “features” thrilled me! It held 15 rounds of 45acp and came with 3 magazines. All the controls were ambidextrous. It would fire double action on first pull then go single after cocking. It had a safety that doubles as a decocker so you don’t have too many levers on it like a Sig.
          But alas, I found a deal on the GLOCK and went with that. Best thing I ever did. You know that integrated safety/decocker on the FN? What if you carried cocked and locked to avoid the DA pull? Then when you had to draw and fire at a threat under stress, instead of taking the safety off, you decocked it. It is the same motion and the same direction. That to me is a design flaw. Might as well get the Sig. With the GLOCK, it is true, less is more. Wife carries the Beretta Nano. It doesn’t even have a slide lock tab.
          These are not play toys guys. These are single purpose weapons. Treat them that way and I think you will be just fine.

    • The solution is many hours of training. Unfortunately, for the untrained, there is a much higher chance of an ND than using the weapon for self defense (even military numbers from Afghanistan with somewhat trained service members show hundreds of NDs each year vs a handful of actual combat uses).
      The solution is still training.

    • The other machinery the author rants about are not designed for self defense like a striker fired Glock. Nice straw man fallacy.

      • My thoughts went to airplane “sticks”. To avoid “accidental” turns, do airlines resort to training or do they require airplane manufacturers to make the stick so that it requires double or triple the amount of force to move it. (Referencing Glocks with 3.5, 7, 10, and 12# triggers.) You could say the same about auto steering wheels or even the accelerator pedal and so on…

        • Actually, planes do in fact have multiple redundant systems designed to prevent pilots from over-stressing their plane. The most simple are weights on the end of levers set 90* off the control sticks plane of motion: pull more g’s and the control forces increase. Go faster? More force required to move the surfaces.

          More complex aircraft with digital fly-by-wire controls will interpret the pilots inputs and determine what control surfaces to move, so not really a good example.

      • In addition to Rick’s airplane analogy, how about a fire extinguisher? Those things can be dangerous if they’re NDed (especially the halon variety, which can cause hypoxia). So how about a Rubik’s Cube you have to solve before you can use it? And it takes 50lbs of force to actuate. If it saves one life…

    • Yes, well…the idiot that doesn’t keep his finger off the trigger, shoots himself or someone else. You can’t come back from that. It’s a done deal. Someone is shot. Lack of training or practice screws someone else…possibly permanently.

      The idiot that forgets the safety maybe doesn’t have enough time to flick it off and try again. But then again…maybe he does. In any case, his lack of training doesn’t screw anyone over but himself.

  2. If we’re talking about Glock, than its track record (safety record x # of weapons of type out there) speaks for itself.

    I have a bigger problem with my government (or police) that might carry them lying to everyone that they can protect people at the individual level.

  3. A gun with only passive safeties, carried in a proper way which protects the trigger from being inadvertently pulled, is as safe as a gun with manual safeties. It is also more “idiot proof” when milliseconds count between you surviving, or being another “gun violence” statistic.

      • Playing devil’s advocate…

        Milliseconds add up very quickly, which is exactly why those who preach the gospel of a pistol for self defense train with their firearm of choice. The sole purpose of training is to achieve familiarity with your chosen firearm, and with familiarity comes habit. When you have practiced clearing the kydex thousands of times, and every time you do so you’re sweeping off the safety in one fluid motion as you present the gun to the target, you don’t even realize that you’ve performed any action at all.

        I personally am not as fast as any pro shooter, nor do I claim to be. But I cannot physically present my firearm and get a shot on target any faster if I leave the safety off as opposed to having the safety on. Making the gun ready is done without conscious thought, and placing the safety back on is as well after the shots have been made.

        Having a manual safety has worked to my advantage as my firearm has been used to initiate others to shooting, and any new shooter is more comfortable when you can look them in the eye when you hand them a gun and say “The safety is on”.

        • Playing devil’s advocate…

          It’s not a matter of speed when the safety is taken off during the draw stroke, it’s when you pull it out and the trigger doesn’t do anything and it takes you a millisecond (or longer) to click the safety off and reengage.

          Also, guns without safeties may make new shooters a little more on edge, but it breeds better habits in more people. How many people violate safety rules because “the safety is on”? If there is no safety for them to rely on, they usually are much more cognizant of where they are pointing the muzzle.

        • I can see the logic in your counter assessment to the new shooter initiation aspect of a manual safety, however I don’t understand you saying “it’s when you pull it out and the trigger doesn’t do anything and it takes you a millisecond (or longer) to click the safety off and reengage”.

          As disengaging my safety is habitual, and my thumb naturally sweeps the safety off whether it is actually on or not, I don’t understand how this could ever be a problem. My failure rate at disengaging the safety on the draw isn’t effectively zero, it actually is zero. The only way my trigger would be ineffective when I should need it is if the striker isn’t at “half cocked”, or if the ammunition fails to function, or if I have a major firearm malfunction. The odds of which are small whether I have a manual safety or not.

          At that point you’d be left with the same options you have with any striker fired weapon, tap, rack, and hopefully you’ll get a bang.

    • Indeed. Guns are supposed to fire when the trigger is pulled. If you don’t like striker fired guns with no manual safety, there are plenty more fish in the sea. Why does the author carry a Glock?

      • The author’s point is the same point I’ve said on this website numerous times. While most of you glock owners are smart theres also a good niche (about 10%) who are complete morons and can’t handle a single trigger safety. Now unless glock owners are going to be tested on their competence (oh Jesus I can picture the uprising now) then glock should just add a grip safety like XD and be done with it. This isn’t an issue of “does it work” its an issue of “a bunch of you are too fucking stupid so find another way to make it work.”

        • Your comment sounds like it has the same logic as an anti gunner who thinks that because a few people are too untrustworthy to be allowed to own guns, that we should just have them all taken away.

          People who cannot be safe without an extra safety won’t be around those guns for long. Whether they do it by changing guns or pushing up daisies is up to them.

        • You’re a typical libturd gun owner who can’t actually read. You probably voted for Obamacare. It’s pretty simple in glock’s case. Their safety sucks because most of their buyers are dumb. Rather than us getting some BS law passed by libturds saying “all guns must have blah blah blah” they should just add a damn grip safety and move on. My point is glock can fix this and blame it on the cops in the future, you’re whining about that and hoping to create some glock disaster which is in the makings so that libturds can ban your stuff.

      • That was my question also. The author blasts the idea of carrying a firearm with no manual safety, then admits to carrying one himself. Am I missing something??

        • The author seems to be saying “I’m good enough / smart enough to get it right. You other plebes aren’t.”

          It comes off as elitist crap whether he really intended it that way or not.

        • He may be just trying to make the argument that he realizes the “pitfalls” of GLOCK carry and wishes all of us would come to the same realization. I posted something similar on another thread explaining the field strip process and how to avoid an ND. I am unofficially on “Team GLOCK” and I want our kind to be the safest among POTG. Maybe he didn’t explain it as intended but I don’t blame RF for reprinting it. If you put it on the internet, you no longer own it. Just ask Anthony Weiner.

  4. Articulately made point, agree or disagree. And I was with you until said you carried a Glock! WTF? If they’re so horribly unsafe, then why do you carry one? Why do you not carry a gun designed around the human f-up factor about which you rail? Because you think you’re as special as the Operator-type folks you decry?

    • More importantly, the author is on the verge of lying. He says

      … the idea that a system with no secondary manual safety systems and a lightweight “go” button would be deemed irresponsible.”

      But there is a secondary manual safety system — it’s called a HOLSTER that fits properly and covers the trigger guard. A Glock handgun in a properly fitting holster will NEVER fire itself and harm anyone.

      I don’t know anyone who carries a Glock handgun loosely in their pants, car, purse, backpack, or whatnot with a round in the chamber. They either carry it without a round in the chamber (oops! another secondary manual safety system) or they carry it with a round in the chamber in a properly fitting holster that covers the trigger guard.

      The author doesn’t know what he is talking about.

    • Yeah, I can’t really tell what the author’s complaining about. He points to a few comment he doesn’t like, I mean, welcome to the internet. Makes a hasty comparison to other machines and broad, unkind allegations about gun people and the industry.

      Seems like the author just has a chip on his shoulder and expects others to substitute his angry, peremptory half-baked thoughts for their own. Reminds me of some anti-gun people.

  5. Redundant safety in the automotive world? Where’s the safety on the gas pedal? It’s light and without a mechanical safety, why shucks I could just press it down and run over somebody!!! This coming from someone who likes manual safeties on his guns…

    • Not that I agree with OP (I loathe external safeties) but you must have the car running in the first place for the gas pedal to make the car go forward.

      Starting the car is not unlike disengaging the safety.

      A gas pedal safety would be like a gun that requires you to disengage the safety after every shot.

      • Reference my point, a manual safety on a vehicle would be more like a grip safety on the steering wheel or some sort of “hinged” gas pedal which only can be applied perfectly straight to the floor… Having the car running & fueled is not a safety; that’s like saying my gun has a safety when I have an empty chamber and no magazine.

        • full mag = full tank
          chambered round = running engine
          full auto selector = cruise control

      • Car has to have the key inserted, twisted, engine on, brake depressed, tranny moved into gear, gas pedal depressed, and finally you go.

        • It’s almost like it’s a complex machine that needs multiple subsystems functioning together at once to perform it’s intended task.

        • A Glock must have magazine loaded, magazine inserted, and slide racked to chamber a round prior to any danger. Compares well with the car scenario, huh?

  6. So, we should have government telling us how to be safe, and mandating that we be safe, rather than as consumers demanding that manufacturers make safer firearms? No thank you.

    If you wanna put your money where your mouth is, sell your GLOCKs and use the money to buy firearms with safeties on them.

  7. Glock’s along with most plastic guns are the Toyota’s of the gun world. Personally I dislike not having a manual safety, so I move right along from the basic Glock to a little more fancy plastic gun, H&K.

    Its all the same crap, I never got the big thing around plastic semi auto guns, there all the same. No brand or gun really does anything better, some are just different. Glock chose to leave the manual safety off.

    FYI if you have a gun with a manual safety you can chose not to use it.

    • FYI if you have a gun with a manual safety you can chose not to use it.

      While technically true, there is a drawback to not using a manual safety. If you practice drawing and shooting with the safety off, that means you never bother to disengage the safety in practice because it is never engaged. But what happens if you need to use the handgun for self-defense and something previously engaged the safety without your knowledge? Therein lies the rub. If you have a manual safety, practice with it engaged … or have a gunsmith remove it if sensible.

  8. There is no safety for sheer negligence. I speak for myself when I say that even though the gun I had did have a safety, I still had my ND. It’s all about awareness. A Safety imo is just peace of mind, nothing more, nothing less.

    • No but the number of XD ND’s compared to glocks is news enough to say add a freaking grip safety already. Obviously there’s a big enough moron segment in the glock department to cause this to be a 3 day argument in the first place.

      • Not to say that XDs aren’t inherently safer, but the reason that Glock NDs are more numerous than XD NDs could easily be explained by the number of Glocks compared to XDs. Another good explanation would be the average purchaser of said guns. XDs (I have to imagine) are more often purchased and used by knowledgeable and skilled gun owners simply because of brand recognition alone, let alone price!

        A much better number would be Glock NDs vs 1911 NDs, although the average knowledge and skill levels might still be a factor. It would be an interesting figure to look at.

  9. I have to agree with the writer, saying you don’t need a safety because you never make a mistake is like saying you don’t need seat belts and air bags because you’re such a good driver. Yeah, yeah, I know with cars it’s about the other drivers, but who else might pick up your firearm? If you don’t like safeties, leave it off when you carry, it’s your choice.

    I prefer safety on, and if that half second to click it off costs me my life when the day comes, that was my choice. Until then I prefer that small added level of…. safeness?

  10. What does GA Koenig expect? Is he making the argument that just because somebody somewhere is going to make a mistake, we should remove the choice for everybody, period? My CCW has an external safety because it was a ‘deal-breaker’ for me if it didn’t. I had that choice. And with all of the choices available, it’s a wonderful thing to have the option of such a choice. What I will not support is any decision to force ” … stringent, life-safety requirements” just because we can. Let the consumer decide. Do more to inform and educate, and do less to legislate behavior. Ultimately, more rules don’t work. Changing someone’s attitude goes a lot farther.

    • Well glocks are the generic gun of the world which means they’re attracting the idiot owners who can’t handle the safety available. Which basically means, glock can either admit they have idiots buying and add a grip safety, or start making people pass a test prior to buying a glock.

      • Or, you know, you could open Door Number 3 and just stay the HELL out of other people’s decisions.

        Glock chooses not to add a grip safety and not to provide mandatory training to their customers. Last I checked, you are not the key decision maker at Glock, so until you are, why not just stop trying to pretend you have the CONTROL of tell them what they should, and should not do.

        If you don’t like the absence of a grip safety on Glocks…don’t buy a Glock. Pretty simple, no?

        And this comes from a dude that carries Condition One with a firearm with a manual safety, not a Glock Fanboi.

  11. All those other industries would kill (pun intended) for firearm safety statistics. 100 million law-abiding owners of 300 million firearms, and some 500 are killed annually due to accidental/negligent firearm discharge.

    Go clutch your pearls somewhere else.

  12. My grandfather wired the guard on a circular saw in the open position because it was more convenient. I have seen people buckle a seatbelt and stuff it under the seat to shut off the light/buzzer. People will always find ways around manual safety.

    Got a 3 prong plug and a 2 prong outlet? Break off the prong. Got a 3 prong plug and a 2 prong extension cord? Cut the nub off the end of the cord so it fits

    It all comes.down to the person using the equipment.

  13. You sound like a guy that would mandate training wheels on motorcycles because they might fall over and hurt someone. Cars, motorcycles, guns, lawn mowers, etc are inherently dangerous for those who are stupid, careless and/or untrained. My cars, motorcycles, lawnmowers, etc. don’t have safeties on them so why is a gun different? Where is the logic?

    • Cars, motorcycles, lawnmowers, etc. don’t have to meet mandated a safety standards? What planet are you from?

      • I find it interesting from a human behavioral study perspective that you are snarking on people here in the comments on their intelligence and what not and yet you seem to have completely missed the difference between a ‘manual safety’ and a ‘safety standard.’

        Very interesting indeed.

        Anyone want to vote Dunning-Kruger as Theme of the Day for this thread in general?

  14. Even with a striker fired, safety-less gun with a hair trigger, a gun owner would have to make multiple simultaneous mistakes to have an ND (e.g. keeping a gun loaded AND putting his finger on the trigger).

    A competent, sober, well trained person who is maintaining the proper focus on the deadly tool in his hand has a very low probability of making those simultaneous mistakes. The cops who make all those NDs have crap training. Their fingers go right to the trigger instinctively, while a safe shooter’s finger goes right to the frame or slide, unless he’s engaging a target.

    And I don’t know what sort of crappy vehicles you drive, but the throttles on my bike and in my car don’t have safeties or resistance that’s heavy for my wrist or foot (as appropriate).

  15. So all those NDs that occur every year with weapons with safeties are just…what? With revolvers? Longuns? Anecdotal?

  16. Where are all of these super magical extra safe safeties in all these other industries with such high standards then? My drill press doesn’t have a safety (but does have an emergency stop, relevant later). After all, wouldn’t having to flip a switch every time you needed to depress the gas pedal lead to more fatalities? Abruptly stopping on the GSPKWY because your foot slipped and your magic super safety auto engaged, causing the guy right behind you smashing into your bumper comes to mind.

    If by safety features you mean emergency shut offs, kill switches, and passive safeties, your argument falls flat. These are nothing like a “traditional” firearm safety, they are passive, and in that regards, they are more like Glocks than anything. Then there are things like the aforementioned drill press emergency off. Things like that weren’t designed to prevent fuck ups, they were designed to prevent little fuck ups from turning into big fuck ups.

    When you invent a way to take back a bullet, you will have my applause.
    When the safety impedes the actual functioning of the machine, it is stupid, and probably won’t catch on. If it impedes the incorrect functioning of the machine, and only kicks in when needed, it will most probably be accepted and in no way hinder efficiency.

  17. The controls of my car doesn’t have any safeties, gas, brakes, reverse, radio, whatever. You trust me with a brake pedal but not a trigger? Sigh.

    • Does your car have a single button (that requires 5 lbs of force to push) that will start it and go max throttle with a single flick of the finger?

      Would you own such a car, or put one into your garage?

      • Does your gun load its own magazines and cycle its own action to chamber a round?

        Beware of false comparison. You set one standard for ‘ease of use’ for the firearm and another for the car.

  18. Overall the safety record for handguns is quite good, as noted above. It would be very interesting to know how the weapons involved with those 500 people who were killed by ND’s were broken down by type… revolvers, pistols with safeties, pistols without safeties… . And were rifles and shotguns included in that total?

  19. Can we assume GA Koenig is all for mandatory smart gun technology and retrofitting all current non smart guns? Because you know, the technology exists in some form and can work some of the time to keep some safer.

    • I assume you don’t mean that in an entirely serious way, as all smart guns ever have been either total shit or vaporware.

      • Of course I was being facetious. The authors post strongly implies that because external safeties are available, there is no excuse not to have them on all guns. Under this logic, since something like the Armatix IP1 exists and presumable functions, ie proof of concept, why not apply the same logic to say there is no excuse for not having smart gun technology in all guns. Since we’re all puffing out chests out and deluding ourselves you know. Besides it’s for the children or some other cliché.

  20. Notice how the safety systems of an automobile are designed to protect against factors that the operator cannot necessarily control, while the gas and brake pedals can be freely deployed at any time?

    If you want to force an analogy that doesn’t really fit, consider a manual safety on a gun to be equivalent to a locking switch you’d have to flip before you can hit the brake pedal on your car; it’s not a problem if you know ahead of time that you’ll need to stop, but say you’re crossing an intersection and in your periphery you notice someone barreling through it; you have half a second to slam on your brakes before they smash into you. That little locking switch doesn’t seem like such a great idea now, does it?

    As amusing as I find your attempt at tough talk to be, I still maintain that what you sarcastically call a “Combat Applications Group operator” is generally considered “not a f-cking idiot” by PotG. Finger off the trigger until you’re ready to shoot, know what you’re shooting and what’s behind it, don’t point at anything you don’t mean to shoot, and don’t shoot anything you don’t mean to kill or destroy: when those rules are followed, NDs do not happen. If someone disregards those rules, then no amount of engineered safety devices is enough to protect that person from their own stupidity.

  21. There will always be an issue when it comes to what the OP has written. It’s the SAME argument that happened (still happens) between the 1911 crowd and the Wonder Nine crowd. The same with revolver over semi auto’s….AR/M16 over M14/M1A. The list is endless.
    I’ve seen a few discharges in my day…as a gunsmith and gun nut (esp as a ‘smith) I’ve had discharges from malfunctioning firearms but mostly from “garage gunsmith’s” whose idea of “fixing” something included a bastard file, Dremel tool, a Walmart hardware isle screw/nut, J-B Weld, etc.
    Saying that, I’ve seen quite a few Glock ND’s…but 90% were just plain old “operator headspace and timing” foul ups. Glock’s have never felt right in my relatively small hands…I’ve owned a few here and there (my favorite was a Glock 20 custom job that had a grip modification that fit my hand better than any other) and I always carried it unchambered because of my style of carry (SOB sans holster) during the spring/summer/fall hot months. Just a reassurance to myself but I was immediately behind the eight ball for not having it “hot”.
    I carry revolvers and semi autos depending on where I’m at and what I’m doing….
    It all depends on each INDIVIDUAL’s needs and preferences (peace officers, etc have to deal with what they’re issued). I don’t care for Glock’s at all and they don’t work for my “old school” (LOL) style…BUT I won’t paint them as “unsafe” with a broad brush or a blanket statement because they are as safe as any other handgun out there when comparisons on a level aging field are made.

    All this straw man argument is about is nothing more than trying (as the anti’s ALWAYS do) to blame #1 an inanimate object for something it cannot possibly do & #2 brand police officers/gun owners as trigger happy idiots and who NEED to have some sort of mandated “hesitation switch (trigger)” built in to put a check on “accidental” discharges.
    Just another backdoor attempt at making self defense with a firearm more difficult.

  22. I just went and checked all the knives in my kitchen. Oddly none of them have a single safety on them, let alone two. I suspect it’s because safety features would inhibit their primary function. Cars, Planes, Medical devices, etc. have a lot of safety features that actually enhance their primary function, while reducing risk of injury or death due to misuse, failure, etc.

    Go ahead and put a 12 pound trigger and a safety on your Glock and let me know how it impacts the primary function, being able to hit what you are aiming at in the spit seconds of life or death.

  23. All my guns have a safety — even my revolvers. A good holster keeps the trigger covered, making it massively difficult to make the gun go boom inadvertently.

    I also have a finger that manages to stay away from the trigger when the guns are not in their holsters.

  24. For every Chipotle Ninja out there, there are two insufferably arrogant Armchair Beta Experts whose sole pleasurable pursuit in life seems to be telling people how stupid they and their choices about firearms are.

    Elitist Pricks the lot of them, and this fool is no exception.

    I’m not an operator who operates operationally, and yet I manage to own and carry firearms both with and without a manual safety.

    I do not imagine myself some other worldly being whose training and intellect far outstrip those of his peers.

    It is for this very reason that I know that most everyone else can ALSO manage to own and carry weapons with and without manual safeties and do so safely.

    I am a rotund redneck fellow, no smarter (though perhaps a bigger asshole) than most, so if I can manage to carry and use such weapons without shooting my whiner (or other important appendage) off, then the great majority of the rest of the population ought to be able to pull it off too.

    If Mr GA Elite Jackass finds that a Glock is too much responsibility for him to handle safely, perhaps his sense of eliteness is somewhat misplaced.

    • So, RF took a comment I posted (hastily) in a comment thread and turned it into a headline article. I noticed his deletion note (with a note in the thread that it would be turned into a post), and immediately emailed asking if I could rewrite my thoughts to be a little more cogent and detailed. I never received a reply…

      As to my “elitist” attitude, I’m not speaking of gun owners who take the time and due attention of care to receive and maintain proper training. Most of the people who would be reading a website about this sorta stuff are not the issue… which is a huge problem when the topic of safety for military or LE firearms comes up in the gun community – enthusiast gun owners always expect everyone who’s job necessitates the carry of a firearm to be as deep down the rabbit hole as they are.

      In reality, large LE agencies and the military are majority staffed by folks who are not firearm enthusiasts, and who will go through the minimal level of firearms training. Both LE and Mil agencies are currently getting pounded with civilian mandated requirements to spend their precious training resources on things *other than* gun handling. As such, the de facto standard of training that firearm designers get to assume amongst the user population is pitifully low, and there is really little/nothing that can be done about it from the hard-goods side of the industry.

      In product design, we deal with these sorts of problems all the time. Part of the job is designing stuff to be useable, effective, and safe for the lowest common denominator in the intended user population. In cars, we have ABS, because for every switched-on, track day attending, lapping day junkie who can trail brake his Miata, there are 500 drivers who don’t know how to do anything besides mash the brake pedal and pray. It would be (at this point) irresponsible to be making a beige box commuter car designed for everyday folks to drive that didn’t have ABS and traction control systems.

      Those same realities play out in large LE departments and the military. Let’s face the fact, for every “gun guy” police officer out there, there are 10 who see the firearm on their duty belt as a burden and who will receive the minimal level of training mandated. So do I think a GLOCK is intrinsically unsafe? Absolutely not, but I think it is an irresponsible choice to issue GLOCKS to a user population you’ve provided 10 hours of square range time and 5 hours of classroom instruction to before letting them loose on the streets.

      TL;DR – the discussion about what is personally unsafe about firearm design is a *very different* discussion about what is unsafe about firearm design for a mass-issue population with limited training. For that latter group, I think that there is a case to be made that a GLOCK may not be an appropriate choice of firearm, given the strain on training time and budgets.

      Of course, we are also all pissing in the wind here. Nobody is keeping any sort of statistics about NDs in police departments that we can draw accurate conclusions from. Everyone is literally talking out of their ass as to if there is a problem here or not.

      • As an engineer, I try to at least partially moron proof things so I know what you are talking about. I do not know if external safeties are moron proof either, but it does make things so inadvertent trigger depression due to stupidity, negligence, or just plain stuff happens, is a little more difficult. I know it does take a little bit more time and effort to flip off the safety, but I did have a friend who spent quite a bit of time in the Vietnam Disneyland of SE Asia who always stated that slowing things down and thinking of what one is doing can be a life saving event. I lack faith in the rank and file masses to be safely proficient with a Glock type pistol.

      • Now see, that’s more or less the same information, but in a tone that makes you seem 100% less like a dick.

        THIS should be your default mode of communication.

        The other way brings out the sarcastic assholes. 😉

  25. Should we also require all knives to have no sharp edges and round tips? Because knives hurt people hundreds if not thousands of times per day. I demand an end to knife violence!!!

    Modern guns and ammo are very safe and follow very stringent tolerances. If this was not the case there would be countless lawsuits against manufactures for negligence. The issue here is not the tool, it’s the user. Maybe in some cases it is the “tool”.

  26. GA said it well and is correct. Humans overall ain’t perfect including with weapons even if they convince themselves they are as evident of some posted comments on these forums. Certain individuals claim to be the perfection of weapon ownership. They point out how safe they are. Admit your shortcomings on these forums so others may learn from your experiences. Stop lying to yourself by telling us you’re perfect so you feel good in mind and spirit when you probably are not. Keep practicing to achieve the most perfect weapon owner you can be. Practice hard with your defense weapon first and foremost.

    • Thanks for the paternalistic condescension just the same, but obeying gun safety rules 100% of the time when it comes to storing, handling and firing weapons does not make us “perfect.” It is the bare minimum, and failing to do so is what causes NDs, not a lack of safety mechanisms built into a gun.

      • Examples of paternalism include laws requiring the use of motorcycle helmets, laws punishing citizens for not obtaining their driving license in time, a parent forbidding their children to engage in dangerous activities, and a psychiatrist confiscating sharp objects from someone who is suicidally depressed.

      • There’s no activity that humans do that is done right 100% of the time. Even if it’s something absolutely simple or stupid, eventually a human will make a mistake. That’s why you design to account for it.

        • That guy’s not going to be using a safety to begin with, so just leave him be and Natural Selection will take care of the problem. Those of us who respect the destructive power of firearms and handle them accordingly should never be expected to pay any sort of price for idiots that don’t.

  27. It’s a shame so many people confuse a safety that prevents ACCIDENTAL discharge (firing pin block, drop safety) and one that HELPS prevent a NEGLIGENT discharge (grip safety, manual sear safety, trigger safety)

    Automotive, aerospace, medical industries all have safeguards in place to prevent the ACCIDENTAL unintentional incident; the four redundant systems in aircraft for example. Typically there is not a safety that will stop an intentional act…. like when my car is in gear and I press the throttle, it accelerates. There’s no grip safety on the steering wheel ensuring that I have the vehicle pointed in a safe, non-pedestrian laden direction. Just like if you pull the trigger of a loaded gun, it will fire. Modern firearms in good working order don’t really send a projectile downrange any other way but a complete trigger pull… a manual safety of some kind doesn’t really make it more “safe”, just one more obstacle to prevent a NEGLIGENT trigger pull.

    • That’s one that’s tough because being striker fired there is no in between. Either 100% ready or un-cocked, the only other safety is keeping an unloaded chamber like a single action.

  28. What nonsense. My Shield has an external safety, which I keep in the off position at all times, and which I purchased because the safety-less version wasn’t available at the time. If every one of my handguns had a safety, I’d either confuse the on/off, or get into the habit of assuming the safety is on, and then do something stupid like shoot something I didn’t mean to shoot. Instead, I just keep my finger off the trigger until I’m ready to pull it. Turns out, if you don’t pull the trigger, it won’t shoot (barring malfunctions and other outliers that don’t factor into this discussion).

    If you want a safety, great, you can buy a gun with one. But don’t impose your pants-wetting on how I choose to best defend myself and my family [and nobody else].

    To your credit, at least you didn’t throw a bunch of “THERE SHOULD BE A LAW” in there. But we both know you were thinking it.

  29. Noticed something the military units that carry G17,19, 26’S. or in Iceland the G20 all have nearly 0 ND or AD. Not due to training, practice or anything other than Israeli style carry.

    Not suggesting it for everyone but that’s what even Gaston suggests.
    I keep a Glock as it’s issued, mandatory that I have one. Choose to carry a Sig 2022,226R, &229. I carried a 4506 & 1911, with a S&W 659 at home after model 10’s & 64’s were made optional carry.

  30. Anyone arguing that safeties are a nuisance or anything of the like is also on a fools errand. Anyone can train to carry and shoot a firearm of any type and become proficient. You can watch 1911’s brought to bear just as quickly as any striker fired pistol and used WELL. Same goes with revolvers. “Forgetting” which way the safety goes even in the “heat of things” means your proficiency is in question. Rather a dumb argument there. You should KNOW by FEEL ALONE whether your carry weapon/home defense weapon, etc is ready to go, loaded, on/off safe….if you can only do that with a Glock or whatever specific type of handgun/firearm you employ…then you’re in deep shit.

    • I completely agree. I would not own a glock if you gave it to me. I had a few, and the lack of safeties plus a few ergonomics issues turned me off completely.

    • Not everyone who owns a gun wants to master it. Some people just want to have it in case it’s needed, and know how to use it. Pull the trigger, it goes bang. The great thing about freedom, is that you can choose what works for you. Do you think the elderly folks who just got robbed want to train a few hundred times to become proficient with their new gun, or just understand how to safely operate it and keep it in the drawer unless and until it’s needed. Adding useless external safeties would not add additional safety, but could add additional hindrances to using the gun effectively.

      TL;DR: Not everyone buys a gun to become an elite operator like you.

  31. Private gun owners should be able to own and carry whatever they want. Everyone should know their own abilities and limitations and take the blame when they’re wrong and someone gets hurt. While I have many thousands of rounds through autos and still love to shoot them on the range, I am a committed revolver guy for EDC for just that reason. If I did carry an auto it would be one with some sort of safety system beyond the so-called “safety trigger.”

    But what gets bought with taxpayer money for public safety/law enforcement employees should be held up to reasonable equipment safety standards and that includes safety in use as well as inherent safety. Those people who say, “Keep your booger hook off the bang switch” may be right in a procedural sense, but very wrong in an operational sense. Booger hooks and other things get in trigger guards and make guns go off, even when handled by trained people. If an agency adopts a new firearm and NDs go up, a root cause analysis should be done and the recommendations followed. If that means different guns, better training, disciplinary action, so be it.

    I also don’t buy the “most cops aren’t gun guys” argument. If that is going to be their most prominent and hazardous piece of they handle, they damn well better be at least “gun guy (or gal) enough” to handle them safely, and legally, or go find other employment. I think the number of NDs with law enforcement is embarrassing. It should be something that at most happens a few times a year across the country and even those cases should be dealt with harshly.

    • I also don’t buy the “most cops aren’t gun guys” argument.
      I had an uncle who was a deputy and he really was not very good with guns. I knew police officers who were just down right embarrassing around guns. Cops are not high speed low drag operators.

  32. You mention the human factor, as it relates to ND’s. It also relates to failures to fire if the safety is engaged. I carry an XD and it works well for me, but if you grip it too low then it will not go bang either. It is all a matter of balancing risks.

  33. Eh. Carrying a gun for self-defense is a risk management decision. What can go wrong? How bad will it be? What can I do to mitigate it?

    Problem is, regardless of the type of safety there are drawbacks. You have to understand the decision you make, what the risks are, and put in place mitigations to minimize the chances AND consequences of the negatives which can happen.

    Sure, engineers put in lots of things but as others said human beings ignore or find work-arounds for them. Aviation has found a lot of the items put in place for safety, easing pilot workload actually have downsides. Pilots become over reliant on them, or don’t understand interactions between systems. They start to trust the machine/engineering too much and either because they don’t activate the system or because it breaks and they don’t realize it— they’re screwed.

    Have a reason for what you carry. Understand the positives and negatives of the decision you’re making, train accordingly taking into account the negatives. (CA is now mandating loaded chamber indicators on all semi-auto handguns- if I end up buying one I’m going to ignore it to preclude from developing the bad habit of trusting a mechanical device instead of visually checking and clearing which is safer). Just my .02

    • I agree on the notion of ignoring the loaded chamber indicators. I have one and still perform press checks to see if it is loaded.

  34. Too lazy to read all the comments, but the most important safety on a glock is a quality holster.

    Since the writer of the article says he carries a glock himself, I’m not sure what the point of this article is.

  35. Let’s stop lying to ourselves; every other industry in the world has made significant (massive, actually) inroads into safety precisely because they ditched this attitude that persists amongst gun owners.

    Ok… and what safety enhancements is Koenig talking about or would like to add?? There are lots of safety enhancements on firearms already. Guns are designed so that you chamber a round, aim, pull the trigger and they fire. What more does Koenig want?

    A lot of complaining with no specific suggestions at all. Koenig here is an example for you. If I get in a car, insert the key, and start the vehicle. I can put the car in reverse or drive and the vehicle propels forward or backward. If someone is standing in front or behind the car – they get run over. They could also die.

    Guns are similar.

    If I chamber a round and start randomly shooting at things someone could get hurt. They could also die.

    Guns are designed for this – it is intended. Likewise cars are designed to transport things (even at high speed). They are designed for this. It is the responsibility of the operator to ensure they don’t hurt anyone.

    P.S. Koenig, you provided a crappy piece of writing barely worth addressing. You come here and basically assert we are close minded and you yourself provide no specific suggestions whatsoever in regards to additional safety. An empty worthless ad-hominem read. If you have an additional safety that should be added to firearms – Speak Up!

    …the idea that a system with no secondary manual safety systems and a lightweight “go” button would be deemed irresponsible.

    This appears to be the only extent of your explanation. Lightweight go buttons = better accuracy. No manual safety = quicker operation of the firearm without fiddling around with it. If you want additional safeties go and buy it! Get you a SA/DA with manual safety/decocker or whatever. That is your prerogative. If we want DAO or striker fired with no safety that is our business.

    • Well said. That was a seriously crap piece. It seems that the concept of other people exercising freedom, and the responsibility that goes with it, is scary to Koenig.

    • disagree with this
      No manual safety = quicker operation of the firearm without fiddling around with it

      I’m just as fast (or faster) as glock users with my 1911’s and xd’s.

    • First. I didn’t “come here.” As I said in other posts, this was a hastily written comment in a thread about GLOCKs issued to police departments, where there is the strong perception (with zero data to corroborate it either way) that issuing striker fired firearms with no manual safety has led to an increase in NDs. RF took my comment and (of his own accord) turned it into a headline article. I offered to rewrite it to be a little less bombastic and more clear, but he ignored my email.

      Second, as far as what to do? If you are going to issue hundreds or thousands of pistols to LE or military users, and you’re going to only provide them minimal instruction and twice a year qualification training, I think a GLOCK might not be the most aproprate choice of firearm. That isn’t to say GLOCKS are unsafe; it is to say that mixing GLOCKS + hundreds/thousands of poorly trained users is a bad combination.

      Solutions? Longer, harder trigger pulls. Probably not manual safeties. SIG, HK and FN can contract double action only (DAO) hammer fired weapons that significantly increase the trigger pressure to the point where it would prevent some amount of negligent trigger activation. GLOCK offers the NY1 and NY2 springs that increase the trigger pull weight, but not the length of travel.

      It might even be a Win:Win – in my experience, users who don’t have significant trigger time under their belt do well with long, smooth, trigger pulls that help keep them from doing anticipation dumping.

      Manual safeties are another option, but again, that lack of training and trigger time isn’t compatible. If you have the muscle memory built up to work the safety properly, you’re probably drilled well on the 4 Rules and have those baked in deep.

      The real answer is – as everyone has said over and over again – training! The trouble is, LE budgets are being cut to the bone. Not only do you need to pay for training, you pay the cop overtime to attend that training and you pay another cop to cover his/her shift. Right now, any LE training budges are going towards PC stuff these days.

  36. All my knives have really sharp edges.. when is the knife industry going to mandate blade guards?
    Every car I have ever driven could kill someone(s) if I moved my foot 1 inch at the wrong time.
    Both of these things are issued to people without waiting periods or extra safety devices and both are deadly.
    Neither of these things, nor any firearm will kill on its own. The gun is not the weak point, the man is.

  37. +1000

    People who are too stupid to program at the assembly language level should not be allowed to own personal computers.

    People who are too stupid to avoid accidents in automobiles should be barred from driving, ever.

    People who are too stupid to properly handle electricity should not have access to electricity.

    People who are too stupid to not understand knives can cut the person handling the blade should be barred.

    People who are too stupid to keep their hands from under the deck of a power mower should not be allowed to operate/own one.

    People who are too stupid to routinely buckle seat belts in their cars shouldn’t be provided medical care after an accident.

    People who are too stupid stupid to lock the doors and windows in their homes shouldn’t be taken seriously when a break-in occurs.

    People who are too stupid to shave with a straight razor shouldn’t be allowed to shave.

    People who are too stupid to climb rocks without a safety harness and pitons should not be allowed off flat land.

    People who are too stupid to not catch clothing in office shredders should not be allowed to dispose of sensitive documents.

    And on, and on…..

  38. I’ve heard one valid argument to a manual safety on a hand gun and I wish I remembered who said it so I could give credit. Might have been Ralph. That point was, for a night stand handgun, you would want a double action revolver with a long heavy pull or a pistol with a safety because you could do it one handed. But for EDC, I trust my life to the GLOCK 19. Call me names all you want but I make that choice not lightly or out of any machismo BS.
    I would rather put a bullet in my hip than have missed the safety and have the other guy put two in my chest and one in my head. But after thousands of draw practice cycles, I have yet to touch the trigger before I press out on target. Guess I am some kind of freak.

  39. “Because everyone in the gun world thinks they are some Combat Applications Group operator.”

    Better this , then the kind of fool who is hubristic enough to think he can pass judgement on any gun owner besides himself.

    Quit sniffing the Hoppes, and remember that you have a right to keep and bear firearms…not tell everyone else how to keep and bear THEIRS.

  40. Lol wow, if you can’t handle a gun without your finger going on the trigger don’t own a gun. I can handle a rigged mouse trap safely and I can handle Glock/S&W/ whatever pistol/ safely. I don’t even care for glocks, but I realize idiots do idiot things regardless of their safeties. It may delay the inevitable, but Darwin always wins in the long run.
    Why is it always a Glock? Because Glock is an extremely popular pistol. While cheaper pistols like Taurus/Keltec may outsell Glock, I doubt most Taurus/KelTec owners are hardcore shooters or dedicated CCers.
    This is just a sign of our societies increasing dependance on warning labels and safeties instead of personal responsibility. Everyone talks about the War on Guns, The War on drugs, the War on Terrorism, the War on women, someone needs to start talking about the War on Responsibility.

  41. Addendum-I remember encountering a shooter at the range who carried his Beretta 92 cocked in a Blackhawk Serpa holster.

    Most people would have looked askance at that. I was tempted to myself-instead I told my inner gun jerk to shut up and gently asked him if he intended to carry his 92 cocked in the holster .

    After he answered that yes, it was how he wanted it, I left it at that and moved on to other affairs.

    I didn’t have a right or standing to tell another grown man “this is how you should carry your firearm.” Even if the rest of society would have backed me up, the original intention to ‘intervene’ is still wrong; because I don’t know him. I don’t know his needs. I can no more judge his carry requirements then I can judge what color his next car should be.

    I learned a lesson that day; minding my own business isn’t just a saying, its a way of life worth applying. We would all be better off if we spent more time supporting each other as shooters and less time pointing fingers and saying “impossible! You can’t carry Condition 3/ cocked and unlocked/ a safetyless pistol/ .32 auto/ etc..”

    If I walked up to you and said you shouldn’t own guns, the proper response I ought to receive is “Get Bent ST”. It’s no different when discussing the minutae of carry itself.

  42. Did someone poop in your cereal bowl this morning and leave you cranky? That was quite possibly the worst gun saftey article ever. TTAG has been a chore to read lately and this was the biggest.

  43. Sometimes you can’t fix stupid. I personally know someone who Mexican carries their Glock 27. I have repeatedly tried to convince him that he needs to use a holster, even to the point of offering to buy him one and he still refuses. For a man like my friend some people may say that he needs a safety on his gun, but I think he just shouldn’t have a gun.

    The OP made many great claims about how much safety regulations in the automotive field have improved our lives, but I think they’ve ruined the car. My Porsche 944 Turbo has a small back seat specifically designed for children, but due to safety regulations in my state I am forbidden from putting my child in them because a child “safety” seat won’t fit. Also, in 2000 the Department of Transportation released a memo saying that 3 things could be done to prevent deaths in rollover accidents. 1) Require specific driver training to prevent rollover accidents 2) Lower speed limits 3) Require more reinforcement for the roof of the vehicle. And that is why you can’t see out of the back of your new Camaro, and is also why there has been an increase in the incidents of people backing over small children.

  44. Got a lot of gods here. Gods are perfect, so they’ll never make a mistake. The 4 rules is all you need because gods don’t make mistakes. I don’t care if you shoot your godly-selves because you’re gods, you can’t die, you’re perfect; I just don’t want you to somehow shoot me because of your mindset. I wonder what is like to go your whole life as a Glock god; unable to make mistakes: Never tripping, spilling milk, or cutting yourself when maintaining your knives. Must be nice. Too bad I don’t believe in Gods, so I can’t be one. To out of reach for me because the number one requirement is absolute ignorance…oops, I mean faith in oneself.

  45. “the idea that a system (…) would be deemed irresponsible”

    Yes – what about that idea…?

    Sorry to nitpick on grammar, but if you’re going to pick a fight, you’d better double check your sentences for coherence.

  46. Bejesus.

    So I hastily wrote this in another comment thread, and RF deleted it to repost as an article. For the record, I offered to post a more coherent set of arguments, but never received a reply from RF. Now I’m staring down 97 comments flaming me as some socialist control freak…

    My comments were written in the context of a debate about GLOCKs issued to large police departments and if that is or is not the best choice for those users. This is a very different question than if GLOCKs are safe for individual users.

    I totally agree with everyone that the 4 rules work, and repeated, effective, proper training is the best answer to the question of gun safety. Full Stop.

    The problem with that argument in regards to police departments is that training budgets are an issue, and (from what I’ve personally seen) the majority of officers go through the minimum mandated and woefully inadequate training before being handed a firearm and let loose on the streets. To a concerning number of officers, firearms are a magical talisman on their belt that they are truly unprepared to use and they totally lack the mindset to properly own these things.

    Given those conditions, I think there is a strong argument to be made that a GLOCK is not the best choice of firearm for mass issue to this population. Is the firearm itself irresponsible or unsafe? No – but issuing that particular style of firearm to hundreds or thousands of officers who have received minimal training? I would call that unsafe.

    I think it was kind of shitty to have a hastily written thread comment taken out of context and posted as an article like this.

    • Yeah, that was kinda dirty pool of RF’s part, but the way you wrote it was click bait extraordinaire. I’m sure he just couldn’t help himself.

      It was a ready made shitstorm, and he knew it. Just add comment box.

      As far as he’s concerned, who cares if you get crapped on by everyone and sundry, he gets the ad revenue. lol

    • I withdraw my comments. I see it was just a posted comment and not a submitted article.

      Question to Robert, why did you post a comment as if it were an article? Especially with no context? That seems very lazy to me.

  47. All striker fired pistols are not for the beginner because of the light force needed to fire the weapon.LA County Sheriff’s Dept Deputies are having accidental discharges because they have switched from the double/single action Beretta’s to the SW MP 9mm’s. They have been trained when drawing their weapon to put their finger on the trigger and be ready to fire.When they switched to the striker fired SW MP’s they still drew their weapons with their finger in the trigger guard and have suffered from over 30 accidental firings since the first of this year. Someone buying this type of pistol for the first time must train continuously with it to be safe and even then there is no assurance that when under stress they won’t accidentally fire their weapon.

    • Their previous “training” was down right criminal! Put your finger on the trigger and be ready to fire?? That’s setting them up to fire when they don’t intend to!!

    • I agree. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that much sputtering condescension crammed into so few words. It was basically ‘Glocks are stupid and shouldn’t even exist, because an engineer wouldn’t design a car that way, but I carry one anyway because hey I’m way smarter than you wannabe mall ninjas’.

  48. So . . . what are you actual suggesting?? That every pistol have a mandatory manual safety by law? How about revolvers? A code one has to punch in before the gun can fire?

    • Nope, he meant nothing of the kind. Read some of GKoenig’s replies down here in the comments. This piece was a comment on another thread, ripped out of context and he was given no chance to clarify his points.

      Robert Farago basically fvcked GKoenig over by posting it the way he did.

  49. It appears (given the original article AND the two clarifications the author posted) that what he’s trying to say is that a Glock is a perfectly good gun, in the hands of a properly trained user, but it absolutely requires a bit more training than is being given to most LEOs, and perhaps a bit more training than is needed for other sorts of guns in general.

    We here will go through that training (either formally or through picking the brains of other PotG) and/or carefully think things through. Many of the people Glocks are issued to, won’t, and in that case, and in that case only, it’s irresponsible to issue that gun to that individual. (This is why the author is NOT a hypocrite for carrying a Glock, himself.)

    And third, Robert really should not have just ripped an unpolished comment out of context and published it as a post without giving the author a chance to clean it up. He would be furious if someone did that to him. SHAME!!

  50. The manual safety zealots strike again. I agree with what others have said – want a manual safety? Buy a M&P, or an XD, or a 1911, or any other of the myriad pistols out there with a anti-stupid switch. I’ll never understand the damned harping about shite like this. It’s called choice. We should embrace this, not deride it. It’s that sort of thinking that permeates the anti-gun crowd. They arbitrarily pull statistics, draw conclusions, and provide anecdotal ‘evidence’ to support their position that you don’t need/is unsafe to have:

    Evil Black Guns
    More than 10 rounds in a mag.
    More than one gun a month
    More than one gun at all
    Guns in public parks
    Guns in public
    Guns at all
    Guns without manual safeties

    There is absolutely nothing unsafe about a Glock pistol. Nothing. At. All. There ARE, however, unsafe gun owners that even those magical manual safeties don’t completely mitigate.

    If it assuages your irrational fears of ND’s, and evil strings/coats/shirts/whathaveyou getting caught in your holster, buy something with a manual safety and go about reholstering like the boss you are. Me? I choose not to reholster into my IWB holster without removing it first. There is ZERO need to reholster with speed, or to even mess around practicing it. But hey, to each their own.

    • Why is clearing your garment on the draw so emphatically taught and clearing your garment to holster is rarely mentioned? I too carry a GLOCK in an IWB holster. I go so far as to look at the holster when I insert my pistol. If I had an instructor gig me on that then I would just have to take the criticism and move on. Don’t teach me to behave as if I have a tactical drop leg rig when I have an IWB holster under my jeans, T-shirt and pullover jacket with drawstrings.

      • I agree – it should be covered in more detail. Most of us carry concealed and those that do, carry in a manner to maximize the ‘concealed’ part of the equation. Speedy/sloppy re-holstering just doesn’t mix with deep concealment. I carry IWB in either a CB Supertuck or a Raw Dog. With the latter, I always remove the holster first before re-holstering the pistol. With the former, the only time the pistol comes out is at the end of the day.

  51. Why do people keep saying Glocks have light triggers? Every one I’ve pulled felt like I was trying to push through the cardboard tabs on a tinfoil roll…

  52. I like a real safety.And that’s about it. Whatever you shoot just be safe. I do think it’s a mite odd to post this from a name I’ve NEVER seen in 1 and a half years I’ve been commenting…

    • Robert plucked this post out of the comment stream on another thread, without giving the author a chance to polish or set context. GKoenig wrote quickly for the comments (as many of us do), and not as carefully has he would have if he thought he were writing an article. He tried to get Robert to let him do it, but the emails went unanswered.

      In other words, if you don’t like this, blame Robert; he fvcked GKoenig over.

      I’ve disagreed with Robert on a number of things; I’ve called him on errors and been blown off. This is the first time I’ve ever been p!ssed off at him.

      • I get po’ed all the time-but I’m still here…and I belong to a bunch of FB groups that pretty much are useless. AS the saying goes “the internet is forever”…FWIW I agree that lots of gunowners are fooling themselves. And I’ve had 4 handguns with no manual safety-never shot myself or anyone else.

  53. Where is the secondary manual safety on a scalpel?

    “In any other industry with stringent life-safety requirements (automotive, aerospace, medical equipment, etc.), the idea that a system with no secondary manual safety systems and a lightweight “go” button would be deemed irresponsible”

  54. He’s right. Not a lot more to say about it.

    The reason the military demands safeties, and requires weapons to be primarily carried in Condition 3, unless action is anticipated…is because of the human factor. I can only Imagine the carnage of Glocks and camoflauge nets.

  55. Was holstering my 27 into my horizontal shoulder holster, grabbed my shirt out of the way and neglected the holster retention strap, and BOOM! Stupid found a way to accidentally discharge that bitch! No more GLO
    CKS for this IDIOT!!

  56. sounds to me like a contract is coming up for a large buy of pistols and someone wants glock out of the way.

  57. It’s real simple. If you don’t like Glocks, buy a Volvo. You have just negated the incremental increased risk of owning a Glock.

  58. The only measurable impact of voting, is idiots voting to save themselves from the consequences of being idiots, by forcing those consequences upon others. It’s the root concept of all politics.

    As pointed out in the Smart Gun article recently, if you make something idiot proof, there only comes along a bigger idiot. It’s leveled… If you save someone from their stupidity, they don’t learn the lesson. So, they do something even dumber… This is why any safety at all is bad. Warning Labels do more harm than good. The gene pool is suffering…

  59. I sit at red lights in my 6000 lb truck all the time… often with kids in the crosswalk. One slip of the brake pedal and whamo. I have a parking brake AND a park position on the transmission selector. I do consciously hold the brake down… but ive never felt so paranoid as to engage the parking brake or take it out of drive. That being said, i am very careful with a gun. Loadin a 1911 for ccw in the house felt we eird but considering the multiple levels of mechanical safeties before even engaging the thumb safety i feel reasonably safe. Finger off the trigger.

  60. If a good quality holster is an integral part of the Glock “safety” system, why would not Glock include said holster in the purchase? Would make sense for safe handling.

    • Too many variables. They would have to offer you at least three different systems. Overhead would increase and before you know it, the price would be North of a grand. I wish they came with a box of defense ammo and a box of target ammo.

  61. Lazy, ignorant, or stupid people will have negligent discharges with out without external/manual safeties. A safety or lack of safety is only as good as the person’s training with it. The lazy/ignorant/stupid will either not use the safety or play with the gun since it is “safe” and still have the ND…

  62. I’m not sure what exactly GAKoenig is trying to say. Is this a call for industry reform? If so, then in what way? He says he owns a Glock and it is patently ridiculous to call the design unsafe. What is the problem?

  63. “The reality is, when you start to issue millions of a thing (firearms, cars, sippy cups), you design around the basic idea that humans fuck stuff up sometimes. No matter how smart they are. No matter how well-trained they are. No matter how tough they are. The human brain is a highly unreliable thing with a repeat process failure rate that is simply pathetic.”

    So your answer is that the industry should mandate external safeties? Let’s talk about unintended consequences for a moment. As an engineer, I always factor in ergonomics and the human error and ingenuity. But let’s look at one of the least know spectacular failures of human engineering. Child proof caps. The government mandated these be used for all prescriptions, for the children, because, if we could save only 1. Anecdotally of course we all know how hard it is for seniors with arthritis to open these things. And who uses most prescriptions? Elderly; the ones with no children running around the house everyday. But, for the children. So, before we had these wonderful child protective caps, parents were quite sensitive to leaving prescription bottles around the house, you know, for the children. But after their implementation, parents were lulled into a false sense of security, because we all know, children can’t open these things, right? Since implementation, the rate of child poisoning from prescription medicine has risen. Have we done anything about it? No. When have you ever seen our government or any of it’s agencies admit they made a mistake? So please get off your high horse.

    • Personally, I would welcome a handgun that can only fire when absolutely needed (self-defense or shooting sports). I would loudly support a handgun (heck any gun) that would not ever unintentionally injure anyone, regardless of age. I would stand in a very long line for a gun that provides 100% accurate safety, and 100% accurate and proper use, no batteries needed, one that doesn’t depend on a fading characteristic like fingerprints. I would contribute to a public fund to help people buy these wonder guns. Who could object to owning one of these?

      Who can manufacture one?

  64. [Too many comments to read to make sure I’m not repeating, so apologies in advance if I am.]

    GA Koenig, let’s compare statistics from the nothing-but-designed-to-kill, safety-less firearms industry, to the highly-regulated and stringently-safety-fied automobile industry. Which one kills more people? Which one kills more people accidentally (negligently might actually be the better word to use there)?

  65. Christ, the car world is full of so much self delusion and bullshit. In any other industry with stringent life-safety requirements (firearms, aerospace, medical equipment, etc.), the idea that[sic] a vehicle acceleration system with no secondary manual safety systems and a lightweight “go” pedal would be deemed irresponsible.

  66. Cars pedals don’t have safeties anymore than triggers. Push on the accelerator and don’t pay attention to where you’re going and it’s the same thing. Sorry but most tools rely on the user.

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