Yes. I absolutely agree there is a "balance" between preventing ND's and allowing for hits. We must not have guns so difficult to fire as to make good hits impractical. This very issue was an essential part of the crux for justifying the change from revolvers to semi-automatics for law-enforcement, and the subsequent progress toward shorter and lighter triggers. It is a practical and very meaningful need that the gun allow people to make good hits.
This is where "training" comes in. Just as "training" is part of the solution to mitigating ND's, it is also part of the solution with respect to trigger-control. Each individual is different and we have different capabilities. I don't think one type of gun or trigger is best for all people. A person needs to evaluate their physical capacity and decide whether they're better off focusing their training on trigger-control with a long heavy trigger or the challenges presented by a short light trigger, or somewhere in-between that probably means they'll face both challenges.
The reason I personally prefer long, heavy double-action triggers is because I have the physical capacity to master it, and I can do so training under "normal" conditions. Provided the physical capability, training can absolutely address the difficulty of DAO triggers.
How does a person train to overcome the challenges of a short light trigger? They can practice safe handling procedures to prevent ND's under everyday conditions, but training themselves under the stress they'll face in a lethal force incident is totally impractical for most people. We cannot practically duplicate the kind of psychological stress we'll be under in those conditions. The closest we might come is Force on Force. But how many civilians do taht at all? How many LE's do that more than rarely? We do know that we can perform trained physical tasks like firing a double-action trigger under those conditions. But how do we avoid performing unwanted reactions like startle-response, sympathetic grasp reflex, contralateral contraction, and trigger affirmation? How can we even practice that? At best we can try to practice "keeping our finger off the trigger." But research has shown this to have marginal results at best even among those intensely and exhaustively so trained.
So, train DAO triggers that we can practice and achieve success with? Or try to train a part of our psyche that we cannot even access in practice?
It is evident that most people as well as most institutional agencies have chosen something in-between. They're not willing to put the training in to truly master a DAO trigger, and there are certainly some people for whom it will never be physically practical for them.
I wonder if the in-between trigger isn't the worst of both worlds. Maybe that's why we see triggers gradually migrating toward ever shorter and lighter. At least then people only have one problem to address. Personally, I find myself quite content with the difficulty of a DAO trigger. It's a problem I know how to solve.
