wild cat mccane said:
I was just thinking on this with the hammer fired P226 or P30.
The "shake" to move a sear and discharge is a problem with a broken/stuck firing pin block them too.
Unless it's a true restrike double action, any gun is going to have this concept of "one less" safety feature.
That's only true if those pistols have enough energy in the hammer spring, as in they have been cocked to some degree. On a DA/SA pistol that's not true unless the hammer is cocked. On the DAK and LEM variants while the hammer has some pretension, the hammer still is resting mostly forward. I don't think they have enough of a potential arc to actually detonate a primer (it's an interesting question because I've never seen that addressed anywhere). Similar to say a Glock, the degree of pre-tensioning can matter in the case where other safeties fail.
I think there's a difference between theoretical safety and practical safety. If you take a fully-cocked, striker-fired pistol that has a properly functioning drop safety as well as a properly functioning firing pin/striker block, the chances of both of those failing leading to a discharge are quite small. While MarkCO has seen it happen, I don't believe he's arguing it’s common. Whether that additional degree of mechanical safety matters to you is a question. On a pistol that might be adopted at a department level where budgets are tight and the pistols will likely see years of service and varying degrees of inspection by department level armorers this may become more important to you. While people often also use the "carried a lot, shot a little" adage when it comes to police firearms, they are generally at least used in qualification, which if we're honest is something not always true of private citizens (keeping in mind that those of us on this forum that shoot to the extent we do are the exceptions rather than the rule when it comes to overall gun ownership). I've personally bought a few police trade-in firearms; most of which were in very good condition, but one could have gotten someone killed had it actually been needed because of a lack of repair (and that was a pump action shotgun, something people often consider infallible, that had come out of a cruiser). Again, in those situations a pistol like a Glock has some additional appeal with its added safety.
I end this by saying I primarily carry/use a Glock. I also have a P320, VP9, PDP, P10C, etc. Even being the person that just wrote the above, I do like that a Glock striker isn't fully tensioned and I honestly don't find the resulting trigger pull problematic, even compared to the excellent triggers on the other pistols I own.
Wrongo, bobo.