Why officers shouldnt carry Glocks...

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"...they are unsafe..." Nonsense. You really think Glock USA would not have been sued stupid if their pistols were unsafe?
"...A rookie officer with his finger on the trigger of his pistol..." That is a competency/training issue know as "Operator failure" that has nothing whatever to do with the firearm.
"...truth is that Glocks are accident-prone..." LA Times idiocy. A Glock cannot be accident prone. They're inanimate objects.
"...The fellow officer failed to do a chamber check...officer-involved accidental discharges..." The days of cops being shooters or even ever having seen a real firearm prior to being hired, primarily based on the education, are long gone. No such thing as an Accidental discharge. Just poor or inadequate training.
 
The long and short of it...


99.9% of all unintended discharges of a weapon are caused by human factors, and NOT the design of the firearm. The problem is human error.


Because humans are at play, and humans have lots of areas where they can get things wrong... there is NOTHING, not anything that you can add to the mechanics of the firearms to allow it to fire when you want and not fire when you don't because the operator has made a mistake.

Not even some theoretical future mind reading tech... Its simply impossible to factor out all of the human element.

Good designs can mitigate potential problems with certain times the firearm is handled... Like when it is being stripped for cleaning. Pistols like the Sig 320, require the slide locked to the rear and the magazine removed in order to strip it for cleaning. Other designs can increase the human element chance for error, but proper adherence to safety measures would prevent problems.

But when it comes time to shoot, or to draw the weapon in order to cover a potentially dangerous individual... the pistol MUST by necessity, be in a state of ready. Meaning a simple trigger squeeze is all that is needed to discharge the weapon. If no immediate need to discharge the weapon, the trigger finger must be kept out of the trigger guard away from the trigger.


So DA only, DA/SA in DA mode, SA with external safety... None of that matters when the person operating the firearm does not do their part for the safe operation of the firearm.

One could make the argument that a SA with a very short and light trigger is more prone to error due to sympathetic finger movements under stress... but it has been shown all trigger types are susceptible to it.

A Glock type trigger is neither short nor particularly light... It is a little shorter and lighter than some DAO pistols, but not others.


Making a trigger heavier is not the answer either... Even if the pull is buttery smooth... a heavy trigger pull is a huge detriment to good accuracy. Even well trained shooters tend to need to slow down to ensure good accuracy with a heavy DA trigger.

With the poor training that most police officers receive, and the fact most of them are not "gun" people who like to train on their own... Means the skills to master a long heavy trigger are not going to be there.

Which means lowered accuracy even on the training range, accuracy which gets worse in stressful situations... Meaning more chance of collateral damage and bystanders getting shot accidentally.

Not too long back there was an incident in NYC where bystanders where shot when police where shooting at a suspect. They fired several rounds, and missed the suspect with most of them.



Safeties on most firearms are there to increase safety while carrying the weapon... Some designs need the safety to make them drop safe, others simply to prevent accidents when faced with the wide variety of factors that comes from moving around an environment. Be it a pistol in a holster, or a rifle through the woods.

They are not there to make the firearm safer when it comes time to actually use the firearm. As has been said by me and others, the safety is to be disengaged before you put the firearm into action. It can do nothing to prevent an unintended discharge at that point.

Some holdover military forces like the US require a safety, due to an older mindset as far as training is concerned. Military doctrine tends to not like to change much. Its why the Beretta 92 design gained a decocker and safety, when only a decocker was really needed.

The safety was a hold over from the fact they have been training with safeties for over 75 years at that point... So why not keep doing what worked before.



So, human error is the cause of almost all unintended discharges of firearms... and the only way to combat that factor is proper and regular training. Even then, human error can creep in, as even the best trained have been caught making mistakes like resting fingers on triggers.


So any time a firearm is in use, a small chance of danger is going to be present.

But such is with anything a human is involved in. It's why we have around 35,000 deaths due to automobile crashes each year in the US.

Infrastructure fails...

Industrial accidents...

Its all due to human error... all of it.
 
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I didnt start this thread to hate Glocks. I see it as a firearm which can easily be mishandled if the user is not paying attention. We all are careful but there are those moments where we make mistakes. Both the revolver and the 1911-type firearms have safety features which I feel are safer to handle which is why the police and military used them for decades. The military never worried about the 1911s safety systems getting in the way.

One key thing I mentioned is the grip. Can you change the grips on the Glock?. Not really or at least thats my understanding. On most any pistol you can change the grip. The grip can sometimes make the difference and really effects accuracy. Did the Glock designers think that everyones hand is the same size? This hard plastic never changing grip which you have to live with even if it doesnt work for you. It never made sense to me.
 
"...they are unsafe..." Nonsense. You really think Glock USA would not have been sued stupid if their pistols were unsafe?
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Oops! They have been -- http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/07/25/california-court-reinstates-lawsuit-against-glock/

i'm going to bet that the author hasn't done much shooting, nor has his editor.
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I'll take that bet on the author.
Bob Owens is the Editor of BearingArms.com. He is an alumnus of Gunsite Academy, is an instructor with Project Appleseed, and is the author of the short e-book, So You Want to Own a Gun.
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http://bearingarms.com/author/bobowens-bearingarms/ (Previously pointed out by Tipoc).
 
Gats Italian, I am not even going to waste my time responding to your comments as you are not able to comprehend the points made in my post.
 
I didnt start this thread to hate Glocks. I see it as a firearm which can easily be mishandled if the user is not paying attention. We all are careful but there are those moments where we make mistakes. Both the revolver and the 1911-type firearms have safety features which I feel are safer to handle which is why the police and military used them for decades. The military never worried about the 1911s safety systems getting in the way.

One key thing I mentioned is the grip. Can you change the grips on the Glock?. Not really or at least thats my understanding. On most any pistol you can change the grip. The grip can sometimes make the difference and really effects accuracy. Did the Glock designers think that everyones hand is the same size? This hard plastic never changing grip which you have to live with even if it doesnt work for you. It never made sense to me.
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1911s also have features which make them a little less safe when brought into action... So pick your poison. In the end, the difference is not significant.


The ability to customize a pistol's grip to accommodate a wide variety of shooter's hand sizes is a fairly new idea.

Other than changing grip panels of a 1911, and some revolvers, plus similar grip panel designs on other firearms... Which tended to be more aesthetic than to customize size... Some newer revolver designs do allow entire new grips...

The ability to customize a pistol grip with parts out of the box is about 10 years old... Or at least gained massive popularity in that time.

The first pistol I remember taking note of such a feature was the M&P... Though it could have existed in other designs before.
 
ok, now that i actually read that drivel, the problem, as others have noted, is not the pistol, it's the person wielding it. unsafe handling leads to unsafe results.
 
i'm going to bet that the author hasn't done much shooting, nor has his editor.
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This has been a debate in law enforcement circles for some decades. It has been debated among shooters and trainers as well. It's being debated here and not for the first time.

The author of the article in the L.A. Times has extensive experience with firearms. I linked earlier to his website, here it is again.

http://bearingarms.com/

The comments there on the article are interesting as well.

tipoc
 
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johnelmore said:
One key thing I mentioned is the grip. Can you change the grips on the Glock?. Not really or at least thats my understanding. On most any pistol you can change the grip. The grip can sometimes make the difference and really effects accuracy. Did the Glock designers think that everyones hand is the same size? This hard plastic never changing grip which you have to live with even if it doesnt work for you. It never made sense to me.
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Keep in mind the Gen 4s do allow a bit of modification for grip, but to be fair yes I prefer the way a S&W M&P does it where the back strap also affects the palm swell a bit too. Polymer doesn't prevent customization either as exampled by the HK P30/VP 9. I've owned SIGs and 1911s many times and while I do notice changes in the pointing from swapping grips I always ran with what were essentially stock size. More so many of those pistols are pretty thick my comparison to today's plastic fantastic (just as a function of frame material) so if you had small hands you were a bit out of luck. Granted the 1911 is pretty good here but it is a single stack pistol. For instance the Beretta 92, an iconic 80s pistol, is pretty large in the grip.
 
A Glock is a fine weapon. As good as they get. Not my first choice due to ergonomics of their high capacity guns but, the standard by which are are measured. For a reason. What I see in this article and the examples is human error. Not that I am suggesting I'd be better. But, a short trigger pull has it's place and it's attributes. I wonder how many officers have lived due to it? Get my drift?

If you don't like them then don't own them. Putting your personal feelings on it is meaningless from the couch or, the make believe world you play in your head. Just my opinion.

God Bless
 
Gats Italian, I am not even going to waste my time responding to your comments as you are not able to comprehend the points made in my post.
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You made no point, let alone points. Glocks are not analogous to DA revolvers no matter how many times you conflate them.
 
The difference between a DA revolver,DA/SA semi and a striker pistol that is chambered and hot is the weight of the trigger pull when it comes to the ND issue.

I have mentioned that ergonomic studies of the common reasons for a trigger pull ND do not show that the trigger pull weight of a typical striker gun, DA/SA gun or DA revolver make that much of a difference.

Is this hard to understand?

That's why it's trigger control as the largest proportion of the variance.

The opinion of this or that gun writer who has not read or seen the real professional ergonomic literature (gun rags are not such) is not really that relevant when it comes to this specific issue.

BTW, with rifles - the same literature found that if a gun is brought up to shooting position and a safety has to be flipped off, it degrades accuracy on the first shot.

Glock hating threads or articles are usually not grounded in science.
 
Don't understand the point of this thread unless it is to "poke" at those of us who are well trained in handling firearms and have no issues with carrying a loaded Glock pistol. The Glock is, by the way, one of the finest if not the finest handgun made today for self defense. If you are not comfortable in carrying a Glock with a round in the chamber; then don't. Otherwise this whole thing is just stupid.
 
Glock hating threads or articles are usually not grounded in science.
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Neither are Glock loving threads, articles or posts ;), but it seems to me this isn't a Glock-h8er thread, it's about striker-fired pistols with no thumb safety being unsafe (or not unsafe) in the hands of police officers. I proudly hate Glocks, but I can't see how anyone can logically blame them for the handful of ADs that the original article mentions.
 
You made no point, let alone points. Glocks are not analogous to DA revolvers no matter how many times you conflate them.
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:rolleyes:

My point, was that many feel that Glock's are unsafe because of the lack of an external saftey, yet those same people will not have that issue with DA revolvers or DA autos with no saftey. My point, was that for a Glock to discharge that trigger needs to be pulled, and whether it is a Glock or a DA revolver that gun is going to discharge regardless of pull weight. So my point was that it makes no sense for so all these people to say a Glock is so unsafe because of the lack of external saftey, yet you don't see people in an uproar over DA revolvers or DA autos without an external saftey.
 
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My logic behind the conclusion that 1911s are more dangerous when drawn by an officer? Because when the 1911 is drawn and ready to be used by an officer, the grip safety will be depressed and the thumb safety turned off. You're left with a single action trigger that is lighter and shorter than the Glock trigger. Therefore, more dangerous. But this can be solved with proper training and proper trigger control. It can all be solved with training. But I doubt that you can comprehend anything I just said, as I don't think you've understood what anyone else has posted in this thread.
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I've never carried a 1911, but I get the impression the grip safety is pretty much inconsequential relative to the thumb safety lock. But, as I was trained to deactivate a thumb safety on any firearm only when ready to fire, the 1911 would afford me (and my CZs do afford me) with two barriers to an ND -- trigger finger control and safety lock control. That's double the barriers available on a stock Glock.

As to your pejorative doubts and thoughts, in the spirit of a fun debate between men I'll let you express them without whining. Furthermore, I ask moderators to not come to my rescue and label you a troll. I will take the liberty of pointing out that your contributions herein, up to now, have been notably vacuous, ala most defenses by Glockaholics. I appreciate your effort to be substantive above, and I realize that mindlessly deactivating the thumb safety during the draw renders the 1911 similarly vulnerable to the stray trigger finger, just like the Glock, but given that the trigger pull weights of the stock Glock and most stock 1911s are similar, one cannot, even given improper early release of the thumb safety, deem the 1911 to be less safe than the Glock without the aid of the Glockaholic's universal magic argument wand.
 
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