Uhm, no
Stoking the fires of internet fan boys and haters: Is the Glock Inherently Unsafe?
Remember, I do this to entertain me, not you.
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March 3rd, 2010 at 10:37 am
I don’t think the Glock or any striker fired system is unsafe. Part of Glock’s infamy comes from the fact that it came into wide law enfocement use as the 4 Universal Safety Rules. The result was coppers carrying single action pistols with their fingers on the trigger in tense situations. The result was unintentional discharges.
Truly whether civilian or law enforcement, it is a training issue. If you are not willing to train Rule 3 until it is a reflex ation, then single action pistols aren’t for you.
March 3rd, 2010 at 11:15 am
It’s a gun. It’s not meant to be safe.
March 3rd, 2010 at 11:40 am
Any gun that is made out of nothing but ceramic and plastic is unsafe!
March 3rd, 2010 at 11:50 am
Trigger pull weight on a Glock vs. a 1911?
Trigger pull distance on a Glock vs. a 1911?
The answers point to one fact: when these pistols are carried in a condition that makes them viable for self-defense, 1911 pistols are less safe than Glocks.
March 3rd, 2010 at 12:36 pm
nk,
You beat me to it. 😉
Hyman Roth,
…the 1911’s trigger pull weight (∞ lbs.) or distance (0.0 in.) would not then be a factor, as movement of the sear and trigger is blocked by both the thumb and grip safeties.
However, the Glock is indeed plenty safe to carry.
March 3rd, 2010 at 12:40 pm
Cocked and locked is unsafe.
If a glock is unsafe, then revolvers are unsafe.
March 3rd, 2010 at 12:44 pm
Bullshit.
March 3rd, 2010 at 1:59 pm
Yes, but that is a good thing. The military has long recognized that a weapon can be too safe. Strategic nuclear weapons, for example, would be too safe to use tactically, because authorization and launch codes take too long to work through.
Would a gun that requires three hands to hold down all the required safties and an electronic IFF system be more “safe”? Sure. It would also be useless as a defensive weapon.
Don’t give up the idea that safe always equals good. That’s the same losing strategy as letting the argument sway from “what is torture” to “is torture OK”.
March 3rd, 2010 at 3:56 pm
Nate: Yes, but since no such guns exist, does that matter?
March 3rd, 2010 at 4:12 pm
Straw-(wo)man argument, Tam. If you are holding a 1911 with an intent to use it, the safeties aren’t engaged.
A Glock trigger requires a longer distance to activate. It’s also heavier (greater force needed to activate) than many 1911 triggers, especially those on “custom” 1911s.
Those two factors make it far easier to inadvertently fire a 1911 (as compared to a Glock).
Think of a new shooter with a traditional DA pistol (first shot DA, subsequent shots SA). How often does a new shooter inadvertently fire that first SA shot? A shorter, lighter trigger pull is less forgiving.
There’s no reason to drag around a 100-year old antique design. We have better, more reliable, more concealable options available to us today. Leave the single-action pistols on the target range where they belong.
March 3rd, 2010 at 4:33 pm
Train with what you carry and follow Cooper’s 4 rules. Too easy.
March 3rd, 2010 at 6:57 pm
The only thing that is questionable about Glock safety is that it can fire out of battery, and the four rules don’t help with that.
March 3rd, 2010 at 7:15 pm
It can?
March 3rd, 2010 at 7:34 pm
I agree. A Glock is dangerous. It can just explode in your hand, and someone standing in front of it could be seriously hurt or even killed.
I would never have one.
March 3rd, 2010 at 7:52 pm
Sorry Sigivald, i meant it as an obvious joke because I don’t have a dog in the fight. I’ll be more clear in the future.
March 3rd, 2010 at 9:36 pm
In the caveman days, before Mr. Weaver popularized the two-hand hold, the single action was considered the fastest for the first shot and the double action for fastest subsequent aimed shots. The trend is now the opposite with a hard pull on the first shot and light pull on the next and people seem to be fine with it. In the end, no safety device is an adequate substitute for training and discipline.
March 3rd, 2010 at 10:14 pm
Hyman-Roth:
The Glock, and the DA/SA pistols seem to lead in the unintended shoots fired category. Care to explain that?
March 3rd, 2010 at 10:27 pm
same reason more honda accords are in accidents than Jaguars.
March 3rd, 2010 at 10:39 pm
That’s your own damn fault, not the gun’s.
If you can’t control your trigger finger in a tense situation and have to rely on a built-in-lawyer to do it for you, maybe you shouldn’t be carrying a gun.
March 3rd, 2010 at 11:50 pm
I have looked into three Glock “Ka-Boom” incidents. None was the fault of the pistol. Two were double-charged ammo (cheapo Police Dept bulk reloads) and one was the result of a Glock being struck, in it’s holster, by a full swing from a side-handle baton.
All three, explainable, and “Ka-Booms” would have resulted with any inertia-firing-pin weapon or, in the case of the double-charged ammo, any weapon at all.
Both the Glock AND the 1911 have passed the most rigorous of testing, and both are perfectly safe for trained people to carry and shoot.
Word: there’s no such thing as a dummy-proof gun.
March 4th, 2010 at 12:27 am
Will…Not sure where you got your info. But, how many more Glocks are being carried on a daily basis when compared to 1911s? Analogy: a narrow look at dog-bite statistics supposedly shows that Golden Retrievers bite the most people, but a thorough look at all of the data shows that interpretation to be misleading.
RC…Are you going to tell us that you never flinch, no matter what stimulus surprises you? Do you carry a pistol with a 1/2-pound trigger on it? I mean, if your standard is the reasonable one, you should be fine carrying a gun with that light of a trigger on it, right?
March 4th, 2010 at 1:48 am
Nice straw man you got going there, Hyman.
There is a difference between a gun with a trigger so light a stiff breeze will trip it, and the trigger on a standard single action pistol (about three to six pounds). One definitely is unsafe, the other is only unsafe if the operator is.
I’ve carried guns with trigger pulls in the three pound range my entire life, both hunting and, once, in a self defense situation. I’ve never, not once, had a gun go off without a DELIBERATE trigger pull.
March 4th, 2010 at 11:04 am
LOL, the straw-man creator accusing ME of creating one. That’s rich, RC. (BTW, the small surface area of a trigger means that the wind required to activate even a “hair trigger” would need to be a lot more than the stiff breeze that you claim. But I do appreciate the colorful hyperbole.)
In case you didn’t bother to read all of the comments, trigger pull weight is only one of the factors at issue. The other is the distance the trigger must travel. (A man with the facts on his side should be able to address them both and win the argument.)
Why don’t you tell us what the exact dividing line is between a safe and unsafe trigger? Both in trigger weight and distance traveled. I mean, if operator is always the cause of an accidental discharge (as you seem to be saying), how can any trigger be “unsafe”?
Glocks and DA/DAO revolvers both have a longer trigger travel than a 1911. Regardless of the trigger pull weight, you need to make a deliberate pulling action to activate them. What is the trigger travel on a 1911? Could probing with your finger to find the trigger (in preparation for firing) activate it? I mean, people can’t go using their fingernail to pull the trigger, any more than they can use the second joint of their finger. How do they achieve proper placement of their finger on the trigger without somehow touching it before they fire?
Maybe you are the trusting sort of guy who just assumes that every 1911 has a heavy-enough trigger pull, that no dipshi*t-with-a-dremel has given it a Rube Goldberg trigger job, and that all of the people holding these 1911s have extensive experience and strong trigger discipline. I am not so trusting.
I’ll stick with safer choices.
March 4th, 2010 at 9:38 pm
“Is the Glock Inherently Unsafe?”
Mine is safe in my holster, but if I were to leave it out in the driveway or on the railroad tracks or something, it would certainly be in some danger. Thanks for asking.
March 4th, 2010 at 11:21 pm
Hyman, the only gun you can control the behavior of is the one in your own hand and the answer there is the same for every gun: train, train, train. No technology will make you more safe if your hands don;t know what to do.
March 5th, 2010 at 10:53 am
Roberta,
You are correct…but your statement doesn’t address the issue of what is/isn’t a safe trigger mechanism.