manual safety is unnecessary?

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Many people dislike manual safeties because they are concerned that they would forget to disengage them in a stressful situation.

Quite a few people dislike slide mounted safeties in particular because they can interfere with press checks, cycling the slide, or possibly be prone to accidental engagement when cycling the slide.

Many owners of traditional double action (DA/SA) auto-loaders feel a safety is unnecessary because of the long trigger pull of the initial double action shot. They point out that double action revolvers do not have manual safeties and most double action only auto-loaders also do not.

Whether or not a manual safety is desirable on a striker-fired pistol is a matter for debate. Most striker-fired pistols have a trigger pull that is shorter, and often somewhat lighter than DAO or uncocked DA/SA pistol. That makes them more prone to accidental discharges if strict trigger discipline is not observed. Accidental discharges have occurred during reholstering and are perhaps more common with striker-fired pistols than hammer fired pistols. Hammer-fired pistols can be reholstered with a thumb on the uncocked hammer which pretty much prevents accidental cocking and firing.

Proponents of striker-fired pistols without manual safeties say it is only a matter of training to avoid ADs.
 
A pistol is an emergency instrument that needs to be drawn and shot. Anything in between is a detriment.
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There are those of us that have ingrained flipping off the safety into the drawstroke ..... so much so that I sweep my thumb downward instinctively when bringing up any handgun, whether it has a safety or not.....
 
^^^^ Evil Monkey stated current professional trainer thinking very clearly.

Not all of us live in that highly trained, child-free, accident free world where we are routinely only micro-seconds away from being killed by a bad guy. For us, a manual safety in some form ain't so bad.
 
I can go either way for a carry gun. If I know it has a safety, I know how to operate it. It's not a difficult equation. The way I carry the firearm may change, depending upon the type and location of the safety, but it doesn't change my willingness to carry the pistol.


But, for my home defense guns...
No safeties allowed. My wife is not very familiar with most of what I own. As such, I need her to be able to just grab the designated HD handgun and pull the trigger. No screwing with safeties, no manipulation. Just pull the trigger.

So, most of the time, that means the Ruger P95DC is available to her. If not the P95, then it's a double-action revolver.


(My P95DC is the early version where the decocking-lever is only a decocker. It is not the combined decocker/safety.)
 
One of the biggest problems with manual safeties is that they come in different shapes and stiffness.

Some will be easier to train with than others, and because I wouldn't want to chase aftermarket parts to make a particular model better, I wouldn't want a manual safety in the first place. Why even bother?
 
I wouldn't want a manual safety in the first place. Why even bother?
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Because John Moses made it that way. Do you remove the brakes from your car? Do you disable the airbags? Do you cut out the seatbelts and not put the kids in car seats?

Train with what you carry, and that safety becomes part of the draw stroke.
 
John Moses included a thumb safety at the request of the US Army to gain a government contract.
It was not in his original design for what became the 1911 pistol. :)
Denis
 
John Moses included a thumb safety at the request of the US Army to gain a government contract.
It was not in his original design for what became the 1911 pistol.
Denis
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I'd be kinda nervous about going cocked and unlocked with a 1911 but like others have said, I think safety is ultimately the job of the shooter not the gun (presuming the gun doesn't go of randomly without the trigger being pulled).
 
One less thing to go wrong. No matter how much you train, no matter how "automatic" it seems, operating the mechanical safety is just that, a mechanical function. A sweaty thumb can slip right past it, some sort of debris can block it, or just the stress of being threatened can throw all the automatic action from training out the window.
 
Posted by Evil Monkey:
A pistol is an emergency instrument that needs to be drawn and shot. Anything in between is a detriment.
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One of the biggest problems with manual safeties is that they come in different shapes and stiffness.

Some will be easier to train with than others,
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All true.

...because I wouldn't want to chase aftermarket parts to make a particular model better, I wouldn't want a manual safety in the first place. Why even bother?
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Because I do not want it to be possible for something in the holster to cause the firearm to discharge.

I ended up with a carry pistol with a grip safety. Requires no additional steps, but must be depressed for the gun to be fired.
 
Pro:

Some folks can't keep their finger off the trigger when they play with the gun
Some think it will slow down a person who grabs your gun (can you say Open Carry!)
Some think it will fool your kid, if kid gets the gun
Stops the gun from going boom if you drop it (technical debate, depends on gun)
If you wake up in a haze, flipping the safety makes you think and gets you back together mentally.

Con:

You train to have good trigger control (sorry, no train necessary guys)
When you need the gun, you may need it fast. If you don't really train your draw - you will be behind the curve.
Even if you do train, you can forget to flip it off when you need to shoot. Not me - you sez but I've seen high end folks do this. OOPS.

DA/SA gives you a false sense of security:
Even with the increased DA pull, if you rest your finger on the trigger an OOPS of various sorts will pull it.
Folks shoot the first DA pull, then they forget the SA pull is lighter and put their finger on the trigger and BOOM.

If you keep your gun stores safely and train well, you don't need a manual safety on modern striker pistols.
 
Ever seen Blackhawk Down? A Delta operation wiggled his trigger finger and said, "this is my safety" when confronted about carrying a hot rifle in a dining facility.

The brakes on the car analogy confuses me. Maybe the airbag is a better comparison.
 
Like the Kodak Brownie, I prefer to just "point and shoot".....I'll take a gun with no extra Murphy possibles anytime.
 
Ever seen Blackhawk Down? A Delta operation wiggled his trigger finger and said, "this is my safety" when confronted about carrying a hot rifle in a dining facility.

The brakes on the car analogy confuses me. Maybe the airbag is a better comparison.
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I'm not sure I understand the point you're making since most people aren't special operations elite combat professionals. Unless that is your point. If you are a very highly trained professional then safeties aren't needed but if not then safeties are useful?
 
What is necessary is that you do not inadvertently fire the gun, meaning you do not pull the trigger back far enough to fire it when you don't intend to fire it. The consequences are obvious and include loss of life or limb, confiscation of your firearm, holes in the walls, damaged hearing, making the local news, the list goes on. A manual safety helps ensure that this rule is followed, but doesn't guarantee it. Lack of a manual safety does not mean you are destined to have a negligent discharge, either.

I have handguns of both types, and I'm ok with either, but personally I would not keep a loaded striker-fired pistol in my house (nor ever dream of carrying one) unless it had a safety. Loaded DA/SA in the house, safety is on if it has one, and in any case the hammer is down. Bedside dresser gun, I'm especially particular about - safety is on if it has one (otherwise chamber is empty), and hammer is down.

Other folks may have different opinions for different reasons, and that's fine. If a manual safety was really a critical feature, all guns would have them. And there are some legitimate reasons for not having one, at least for some owners in some circumstances.
 
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